Top FTMO Trader Leo: “Trading is the hardest way to make easy money”

We have here the next part of our series on successful FTMO Traders who have made impressive profits or are able to achieve consistent results. Today it's FTMO Trader Leo from Portugal, who has already received nearly $200,000 in rewards from FTMO.

Like the vast majority of our traders, Leo started trading in 2019 as part of a social media trading group, but it soon turned out to be a group of scammers and influencers trying to push people into trading. So he started straight on a real account and skipped the demo phase. Like any young person, he had a big enough ego and dreams which is why he didn't even go to college and instead wanted to make money as soon as possible. After he made some money, he wanted to invest and that's how he eventually got into trading.

Of course, it didn't work out right from the start, so despite starting in 2019, he didn't get his first paycheck at FTMO until March 2023, when he was already even an employee of FTMO. He realises that it's not about the strategy, because he's been using that since 2021, but about mind-set. Psychology and people's big egos make traders blame their failure on strategy, and Leo himself has made virtually every mistake traders commonly make because of it. This is also why he hit rock bottom, where he realised he had to start doing things differently.

GBPUSD is a guarantee of volatility

In his trading, he focuses on one instrument, which is the currency pair GBPUSD. Initially, he tried multiple pairs with the British pound, which guarantees high volatility, but in the end, looking at the journal and the history of his trades, he found that he was most successful on the GBPUSD pair. He also admits that if a trader is not successful on one pair, he cannot be successful on a larger number of pairs. Thus, for his intraday style, one currency pair is quite sufficient.

The basis of his approach is pure price action, and besides he only follows the opening hours so he trades during the London and New York sessions. Of the news, he only follows the most important ones, such as the FOMC meeting, NFP, inflation, when he tries to stay out of the markets. The strategy he uses to trade has been in place since the beginning and the fundamentals are practically the same all the time. He has adapted it to his style based on thorough backtesting, so there is no reason to change anything about it.

Backtesting is fundamental

According to Leo, backtesting is an integral part of success; he tested his strategy on 10 years of data, long enough to have a good statistical advantage, which then gives him confidence. Traders, he says, need to realise that trading alone without backtesting cannot work and is just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately, trading has to be boring and easy because backtesting will provide the edge. He likens it to a sport, which also cannot be done at the top level without proper and long-term training, and this must be continuous because it is simply a never-ending process.

Traps and Stop Loss hunting

When planning a trade, it is based on the high and low of the previous session and looks for where the traps for traders are located and where Stop Loss hunting is happening. So he tries to guess the behaviour of big players who hunt liquidity of small traders and then buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This is then helped by basic patterns like double top and double bottom etc. According to this, he then also enters a Stop Loss, which must be below the local low or above the local high. He then enters the take profit at RRR 3:1, or whichever is the opposite extreme of the day (high for a long position, low for a short position). A lot of times he uses big candles, or candles with a big wick, or pin bars, which act as traps for retail traders.

Leo only trades the first three hours of the London and New York sessions, more specifically the second and third hours when the best signals appear. When a signal appears outside this time period, experience tells him that it is not worth trading because most signals are false and lead to losses. As an intraday trader, he uses only the 15-minute timeframe, which works best for him according to his backtesting, and it gives him the best signals. He also tried the 5-minute timeframe, but it gave him too many false signals. He usually closes trades during the day, but when a trade is going well, he is willing to hold it overnight.

Probably the biggest shortcoming that most traders struggle with is a lack of patience, where they look for opportunities even on pairs they don't normally trade. The only solution then is to turn off the computer and do something else.

Patience is important

From a psychology point of view, his large database of backtests obviously helps him, giving him confidence and reassurance that the odds are on his side in the long run. There is no need to worry about the results of individual trades, which is the mistake of most traders who panic after a few bad trades. It is more important for him to focus on a larger number of trades, which will show him if the mentioned probability plays in his favour. Even with the best strategy, you can experience a series of losses.

The most important thing then is to overcome your ego and accept the losses. In short, the market doesn't address the fact that the trader needs money to pay the bills, so the need is not to focus on the money, but on the success percentage. Money, in short, needs to be taken out of the equation.

Trader vs Casino

The trader should act like a casino that does not count only red and black numbers on roulette, but its edge is represented by a green zero. In the long run, the casino knows it will win because the odds are on its side.

It is also interesting and logical that the less Leo follows the charts and the platform, the more money he is able to make. He also gives his orders through limit orders and when he enters them in the platform, he closes it and walks away from the computer. In the end, he doesn't even manage his positions this way because many traders lose money just because of mismanaging their positions. A good backtest then gives the trader the confidence to manage their positions and not interfere with them unnecessarily.

A common mistake traders make is over-relying on technical analysis to outperform the market. In truth, long-term success comes from accepting risk and putting in consistent hard work. Trading isn’t easy—it’s often described as the hardest way to earn easy money—but the rewards are worth the effort in the end.