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- "And then what?"
I've been using FluxCharts to see real order flow for eight months now, and I wish I had found them sooner. It's your turn to stop trading surface-level setups too.
You’re not trading the chart.
You’re trading the players behind it.
Most traders never figure that out.
They see a clean break of support and think:
“Time to short.”
They see a breakout candle and think:
“Let’s chase.”
They see a level get tapped and say:
“This is the move.”
I used to trade like that too.
Back when I thought the setup was the edge.
It’s not.
The edge is in asking one simple question:
“And then what?”
Not just...
What’s happening right now?
But what happens after that?
That question rewired how I trade.
Here’s the trade that changed everything
Earlier on in my trading journey, I remember watching EUR/USD.
Classic support break.
Obvious short.
Everything I’d learned screamed “SELL.”
But something stopped me.
Maybe it was the string of losses.
Maybe it was intuition.
But for the first time, I paused and asked:
“If I’m short here, who else is?”
Answer: Probably everyone.
So who’s on the other side?
Institutions.
The ones with deeper pockets.
The ones who need liquidity… and just found it.
I didn’t short.
I waited.
Price dropped 20 pips, swept the stops, then reversed hard.
I went long on the liquidity grab.
Caught 180 pips.
Same chart.
Same setup.
New understanding.
This is second-order thinking.
Most traders think first-order:
“This support held before, so it should hold again.”
“Price broke out, so it’s time to chase.”
“Liquidity’s building… better fade it.”
But that’s just reacting to what’s in front of you.
Smart traders think second-order:
“What’s the ripple effect of this move?”
“Where are the stops?”
“What would institutions need here?”
They’re not reacting.
They’re anticipating.
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Ask better questions. Trade better levels.
Before every trade, I ask myself:
Where is everyone else getting in?
What behavior is this setup creating?
Who benefits if I’m wrong?
What would smart money want to happen here?
Am I assuming too much based on what I see?
Most setups are traps.
And they work because retail is predictable.
Your job isn’t to be faster.
It’s to be one step ahead.
Second-order thinking gives you an edge, you've never had
You avoid obvious traps
You time entries with precision
You see what others miss
You stop chasing scraps and start positioning with intent
The market is great at pricing in what’s obvious.
It’s terrible at pricing in what comes next.
That’s where your edge lives.
Look, I get it. This is a lot to process.
Going from reacting to what you see, to anticipating what happens next isn't easy.
It requires rewiring years of trading habits.
But once you make this shift, you'll never look at the markets the same way again.
You'll start seeing the traps before you walk into them.
You'll start positioning yourself where the smart money is going, not where it's been.
And look you made it all the way here,
I know your serious about being profitable and starting your own trading business
Talk soon,
Atif
P.S. Hard truth from someone who learned this the expensive way:
Every time you trade the obvious setup without asking "And then what?", you're not trading.
You're being farmed.
The institutions are counting on you to be predictable.
I was predictable for years. Don't make the same mistake.
Check out FluxCharts here if you want to see what's really happening beneath the surface of every move.