A stop hunt is a specific kind of liquidity sweep aimed at protective stop orders. Because so many traders place stops at the same obvious spot — just below support or above resistance — that price becomes a target. A quick spike triggers the stops and then price often reverses.
Why stops get hunted
When your stop is hit, your order becomes a market order in the opposite direction — a long's stop is a sell. Those forced sells are exactly the fills a large buyer wants. This is the mechanism SMC points to: obvious stop clusters are convenient liquidity, whether by design or simply by crowd behaviour.
How to protect yourself
The practical lesson is to avoid placing stops at the most obvious price. Give the stop room beyond the sweep zone, size the position down to keep risk constant, and remember that not every spike is a hunt — sometimes a level breaks for real. Never move a stop further away just to avoid being hit.
Stop hunts target obvious stop clusters — place your stop beyond the likely sweep, not right at the crowd's price.