Is it a liquidity sweep or a real breakout?

Price breaks a clear low, everyone sells... and it turns right back. Did you get trapped? You may have watched a liquidity sweep. The term sounds like magic, but it's pure mechanics of where orders pile up.

What is a liquidity sweep?

Below an obvious low, stops pile up: those of traders who bought and want to cap losses, and the orders of traders selling the breakout. It's a visible pocket of liquidity on the chart. A move that drops, touches that zone, triggers those orders and turns around has "swept" that liquidity: it used it to fill and went on its real way.

How is it different from a real breakout?

In what happens next. In a real breakout, price breaks the level and continues: new liquidity appears pushing that way. In a sweep, price breaks, traps the orders and returns: there was no real intent to continue, only to collect that liquidity. The difference isn't visible at the instant of the break, but in whether the move holds.

How do you tell them apart without guessing?

Not with a crystal ball, but with confirmation. A sweep usually leaves a quick rejection candle —long wick, close back inside— and often happens in low-liquidity hours or just before data. A real breakout usually comes with volume and in liquid hours. Waiting for the candle to close, instead of reacting to the spike, filters out most of the traps.

So "they hunted me on purpose"?

No conspiracy needed. Price goes where liquidity is because that's where big orders can be filled. Nobody is chasing you personally; your stop sat in the obvious spot, next to thousands of others. Placing your stop where the crowd isn't is the practical lesson.

Sweep and breakout aren't magic or hidden enemies: they're two different behaviors of the same liquidity. Telling them apart is a matter of waiting for the market to show whether it really wants to continue.