I’m sharing one more trading statement for transparency reasons. Many traders think July and August are the worst months for trading because it’s holiday time so the markets are slow and unpredictable. I agree that most summers are slower than other months, but that doesn’t make the market less predictable. If you know what you’re doing you can make good money in summer as well.
It’s worth mentioning that this statement is not perfect. It has only 50% win rate and my equity curve isn’t smooth as I wasn’t in my best shape during the last two weeks. This shows that even if you make mistakes, with the right training you can still bank a lot of pips.
Also please note that during these two weeks I traded only GBPUSD. This proves that you don’t need to be glued to 6 monitors watching 28 pairs all day to make good money. Less is more, because it gives you clarity.
I worked as a web developer for 10+ years before coming into full time forex trading. Transition was painful as I had to overcome harmful habits that I brought from my tech career. If you try trading, you’re likely to face the same challenges, so let’s dive deeper.
1. Overconfidence (I’m a PRO!)
I was a respected, well-paid professional. I was convinced I’ll easily transfer my skills into forex trading. I was wrong. Trading skills have nothing in common with programming skills. Trading a serious job that must be learned properly.
I was so overconfident I even traded all of my mentor’s strategies without stop loss. It felt great because that way I made almost every trade a winner (with no respect for risk). When I became too smart to be wrong I blew my relatively large account.
Before playing with fire, I should’ve learned to handle water first. However, this experience helped me cure my overconfidence.
Approach trading like a new job. Look at it as a child. Don’t try to transfer your tech experience to trading. Otherwise, the market will give you a slap.
2. Emotional Decisions
Sounds contrary – we as IT guys are logical people, so how can we have problems with emotional decisions? As a developer, you spend most of your time in the logical realm. You don’t develop your emotional muscle.
In trading, it’s your cash at risk, so you face strong emotions like greed, fear, euphoria, panic. These emotions short-circuit your brain’s reticular formation. This disables you from making logical decisions. Then, your emotions rule. And they’re the worst ruler possible, forcing you to act against your best interest.
What helped me overcome this pattern is to be aware of my emotions and watch them diligently. If I felt that my emotions spiral out of control, I’d close my terminal, lie down on a sofa, breath deeply or go for a walk. I’d also do a 5 minute meditation before coming back to trading.
3. Automation Craziness
While trading, I also built a trading journal app, some tools and lots of EAs (trading robots) to automate my strategies. I spent 100s of hours coding and backtesting. I failed in all of my automation efforts.
I understood it’s impossible to automate professional trading. Human judgement is essential. My mentor already told me that before, but as a “pro handyman” I couldn’t believe it and I had to hit the wall 100x to finally accept it.
The idea of building a trading robot to print money while you sleep is attractive. Although trading is simple when you know what you’re doing, it’s not as easy as waiting for indicator signal and hitting buy/sell. If it was that easy then everyone would be making millions from trading robots, but reality is far from it.
Avoid the trap of automation. Don’t even start with it because it’s a dead end. Learn what’s required first, don’t search for greener grass and don’t look for shortcuts. Coding is not needed in trading. If you love coding, do it on the side, but don’t build trading robots.
4. Over-engineering / Over-thinking
It’s the cycle I’ve experienced many times: I write down a simple trading plan based on my mentor’s strategy. After a few trades, I want to “improve” my plan because my trades sometimes lose (perfectionism). I add extra rules. I do backtesting and add even more rules.
In the end, my trading plan becomes too complex to follow. Or if I manage to follow the plan, I can’t take any trades because there’s always that one rule that’s not satisfied.
Then I come back to square zero, remove the unnecessary burden and start fresh with a simple trading plan. And the cycle repeats again…
Engineers have convoluted minds. They can’t get it how simple trading is. Since they’re smart, they want to “solve the puzzle of the market” to become heroes. And they keep solving that puzzle (which doesn’t exist), while making things more complex than they are.
To fix overthinking issue, I focused on making myself “more stupid”. Because being smart was a major roadblock in my trading process. KISS – keep it simple, stupid – and your overthinking problem will go away.
5. Impatience
Developers are craftsmen. They code, hit refresh/compile and see the result instantly.
Trading is the opposite world. You wait for a setup, open the trade, set TP (take profit) which is nearby and you expect it’ll take 30 minutes for TP to be hit. Your excitement turns into frustration when you see how after 6 hours your TP wasn’t hit yet. You exit the trade and 30 minutes later your TP gets hit. Extremely painful.
In another scenario you’re waiting for a setup for 5 hours. You had 2 unsuccessful entries but the setup still looks good. You start feeling hungry and self-doubt clouds your mind. You go for lunch, miss the last entry and watch how the train left & accelerated without you. Frustrating.
Trading requires strong patience. I struggled with it. My mind used to go crazy after just 1 hour of waiting for a setup. Nowadays I can wait for 7 hours and it’s no problem. Waiting is boring, and I was impatient because I failed to see the bright side of boredom.
Society sees waiting as doing nothing so we naturally feel bad about it. But waiting is an essential part of any business owner’s workday, including trader’s. Boredom is painful, but ask yourself what’s good about it and what it wants you to teach. You’ll find the hidden blessing behind boredom and it’ll fix your impatience.
6. Misunderstanding Uncertainty
I didn’t come from a business family – craftsmen rarely do – and it’s likely you didn’t as well. Software engineers are used to deterministic systems and predictable outcomes. To put simply: it either works or it doesn’t and it’s obvious. If it doesn’t work then you need to fix the bug and it will work.
Markets and business in general, however, are non-deterministic. I do my homework and I enter into a trade only when I’m confident about its outcome. But that outcome is not guaranteed. So initially I have to act as if I know where the price is going to go, but under the hood it’s actually a 70-99% probability. At some point during the trade I may need to admit it’s not a 100% chance and make changes.
Having a rigid mind that sees apple only as an apple is bad for trading. It leads to debilitating emotions and stress when the future shows that apple was actually an orange. Stress is harmful and it lead me to health problems. To stop self-destruction I had to develop a flexible mind that is not fixated on a single outcome and is quick to change predictions.
To achieve that, I studied the biographies of famous entrepreneurs. Their success stories are usually 95% failure stories. Before they had 5 successful projects, they faced a frustrating failure with the other 95. And when they start their 101st project, there’s still no guarantee it’ll work. Surprisingly, it’s a feature, not a bug!
To make uncertainty your friend, tell yourself that every trade is a new startup. There’s a level of risk, reward and probability in each trade. All of the variables may change during the trade. Your job is to maintain reward, risk and probability in harmony, according to your best interest. When you realise that a degree of uncertainty is a core feature, not a flaw, of trading – your mind will stop exploding and you’ll trade with peace.
7. Perfectionism
I was a perfectionist web developer. Because I had perfectionist clients at the beginning of my career, who did well in their businesses. I’d measure every single pixel to see if it all aligns perfectly. I’d think about multiple worst-case scenarios and make sure none of them can happen. My goal was to always satisfy my clients 110%.
Trading is different. You act according to your rules with discipline, but if you do it perfectly you’ll miss most of your trades. Because perception of the chart is your responsibility. How you describe what you see and how it measures against your rules relies on your brain.
When I traded as a perfectionist, I’d reject an entry because “this price level is too flat” or “this looks too retail” or “this indicator signal should have appeared on previous candle 1 minute before, if it’s now then it’s not good”. These are situations when I see 9 out of 10 stars aligned and 1 (distant and small) star didn’t. And I’d focus on that 1 bad star, failing to see the full picture because… I was a perfectionist!
To cure perfectionism, act even if 1 out of 10 stars doesn’t seem to be aligned. But don’t break your rules. You do need a logical, well defined strategy. Just don’t make it too rigid, leave some loose ends that allow for flexibility. I recommend making entries your loosest part. Have 4-5 different entry methods, because entries are the least important part of professional strategy.
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Thanks for reading this article and have a beautiful day.
Every trader is at least aware of major news announcements like NFP, interest rates, CPI. Some try to trade them by predicting where the price will go based on economic data.
However, during the announcement, forex market doesn’t always move the way it’s written in the “textbook”. Why is that?
Let’s look at a couple examples. You can click on images to enlarge them.
The first example above is GBPUSD interest rate announcement which happened at 14:00 in broker’s timezone, on June 19th 2025. I marked the exact news candle on M1 chart.
According to the textbook, “a higher than expected figure should be seen as positive (bullish) for the GBP while a lower than expected figure should be seen as negative (bearish) for the GBP”.
But the Bank of England didn’t change the interest rate on that day. It remained 4.25%, as it was before. Also, the prediction consensus was 4.25% as well, so it matched market’s expectations 100%.
So why did the market move? The textbook says it shouldn’t have moved at all because all expectations that are fulfilled in reality were already priced in.
Another example above is USDJPY NFP announcement which happened at 15:30 in broker’s timezone, on March 7th 2025. I marked the exact news candle on M1 chart.
The prediction consensus was 160K and the actual number announced was 151K. According to the textbook, “a higher than expected figure should be seen as positive (bullish) for the USD while a lower than expected figure should be seen as negative (bearish) for the USD”.
So the market should have moved down, but it actually moved up a lot before going down. Why did this happen?
When such things happen, people often say: “ah, it’s just the markets acting irrational”, thinking that it’s too complicated to look deeper.
But if Albert Einstein managed to explain space, time and gravity, then explaining how the market works must be easier. Market was made by man, and everything that is made by man is far simpler than God’s creations.
The Answer
So the actual answer is that news announcements do not move the market. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there’s no cause-and-effect relationship between news and market movements.
Forex market always moves to where the money is. It has to, and there’s no other way around it, and it’s that simple. And it’s the only reason the forex market moves, if it moves at all.
I can’t reveal who moves the forex market because it’s confidential information only available to my mentees, but to put simply: there’s always a price to be paid for market movers to move the price, and they only do that when it’s profitable for them to do so. The profits may come immediately or after some time, but the movements are always logical and never random.
How I Trade News
I don’t look at news announcement figures at all. I only check the news calendar every morning to understand when the market is likely to move and plan my trades accordingly.
I prefer to make entries after news announcements. But sometimes I’ll enter before news as well, if I have a good setup.
To protect my trade, I usually expand my stop loss during news because there’ll be increased volatility and spreads.
I don’t trade news for the sake of trading news (i.e. based on economic data). That would be gambling and I don’t think such a strategy could be profitable long term.
Hope this article was helpful, thanks for reading and happy trading.
Somebody told me they’d like more transparency on how exactly I trade and how do I manage to make money trading on a consistent basis.
Although I’m transparent as much as I can, the problem with transparency is that if you go too far, you’ll be stripped naked and eventually harm yourself. I can’t show my chart template and I can’t explain my strategies to the public because it’s confidential intellectual property that must be kept private.
However, I’ll try to walk you through my today’s morning GBPUSD short trade on a blank template to give you a basic understanding of how I trade. I’ll explain what I was thinking about and how I was acting as the trade was developing but I won’t reveal any sensitive wording and terminology.
8:15 I start my morning preparation: checking if trade copiers are working properly on VPS, checking news calendar for today, doing a 5min meditation, reading my strategy rules. I’m happy there will be no news today, which usually means it will be a smooth sailing. It’s also July 4th – a public holiday in the USA, but that will only matter after 15:00 in my (European) timezone.
You can click on images to enlarge them.
8:30 ↑ I look at the chart and see a potential short coming up soon, because the price is in a correct zone and cycle and there are attractive targets for moving down.
So I start looking for entries. After a minute I understand that my entry indicator already signalled an entry 20 minutes ago – while I was still doing preparation work. The price has already moved down a bit, so I decide I’ll wait for another entry.
But then I tell myself: another entry might not come because we’re reverting from a perfect entry zone already. Also, you’re just a bit late and the price hasn’t moved too much. Do you want to be a perfectionist or do you want to make money?
8:36 ↓ So I enter short (time marked with a blue arrow, entry price marked with a white line).
9:05 ↑ The price moved down quickly. It appeared logical, but faster than I expected.
9:25 ↑ It violently moved back up again. Price is still in perfect zone, I believe in this trade.
9:30 ↑ I wasn’t stopped out, I’m still in the trade. Price went back up and my indicator gave me another entry signal, but I didn’t enter because it’s at the same price.
10:00 ↑ I’m still in the trade. At this point I’m already grateful for the market allowing me to watch this movement, no matter what the final result will be.
10:20 ↑ A very important moment – price is confidently moving down. But on H1 chart I’m already seeing a danger signal – a reason for price to come back and stop me out. However, although that is probable, it’s not very probable right now, due to the rules of cycles. So I acknowledge that and move on.
10:35-10:55 ↑ The price is struggling to go down, but I was expecting for it to struggle in this area. Nothing to worry about, even with this large candle up.
11:10 ↑ Usually, price doesn’t take so much time to break through this zone – it violently moved up again and my indicator gave me an exit signal. However, my rules do not allow to exit yet in this cycle. Also, I still don’t see any good reasons for price to move back up to my SL immediately. So I stay.
11:50 ↑ At this point I’m 90% confident price will continue moving down to take out the nearest lows. Thank you, market, for this gift.
12:10 ↑ At this point I was doing something else and didn’t watch closely as the price moved down strongly. Also, I’m becoming hungry. It would be nice to have lunch within the next 20 minutes.
12:25 ↑ My indicator signals an early exit. I check my rules and they say I should exit now because we’re already in the cycle which allows that. I think for 18 seconds: targets still look nice and I could stay in this trade longer, but I risk falling into the greed trap. I should follow my rules. So I’m going to exit (timing marked with arrow, price marked with white line).
In hindsight, I left money on the table because price continued to move down, hitting my original TP. But I can’t take it all every time – profit is profit.
My only objective as a trader is a good and logical execution of my strategy – all else is noise.
If you’re asking if it’s necessary to watch trades candle by candle with my methodology, the short answer is no. There are simple rules for trade management which only requires me to check the charts once per hour or when I get a certain alert.
I decided to watch it candle by candle this morning because I wanted to further study the relationship between USDJPY and GBPUSD in live charts. So I watched these two pairs together. Watching live charts with a trade on (skin in the game) is the best way to expand your understanding of the market.
I hope this article gave you a better idea of how I trade. If you’d like to learn to trade like I do, feel free contact me.
