$197K with GBPUSD – How backtesting helped this FTMO Trader stay consistent | FTMO
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Leo’s story is one of persistence and self-discipline. Starting in 2019, he entered trading through online groups filled with misinformation and unrealistic promises. He experimented with live accounts far too early, losing money and confidence. But his drive to “make money work for him” pushed him forward. Over time, he joined FTMO as both an employee and a trader, gaining firsthand experience in how professional prop structures operate. By 2023, he had earned over $200,000 in rewards, but his journey was built on hard lessons, not shortcuts.
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Leo learned early that mindset outweighed mechanics. He admits to every mistake new traders make — overleveraging, revenge trading, and refusing to accept losses. Only after hitting rock bottom did he realize trading success depended on psychology, not just a working strategy. Once he corrected his emotional discipline, the same plan he’d used since 2020 began producing consistent results. He emphasizes that trading is a mental sport — and the hardest work happens away from the charts.
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Specializing in GBPUSD, Leo refined his process to focus on one instrument, one timeframe, and one goal: consistency. He trades the London and New York sessions, relying purely on price action and structure — no indicators, no news. By studying stop hunts and liquidity traps, he trades against the retail crowd, entering reversals where others get stopped out. This contrarian strategy has been the backbone of his $197K+ in FTMO payouts, proving that mastery of a single market can outperform scattered focus.
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The cornerstone of Leo’s success is backtesting. With over ten years of data stored in Google Sheets, he’s built a statistical map of his performance — every entry, exit, and mistake logged. He treats trading like elite sports: “You don’t play the match unless you’ve practiced the kick a thousand times.” Backtesting taught him to trust probabilities, separate emotion from execution, and stick to proven setups. It’s the work behind the scenes that turns strategy into instinct.
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Psychology now drives everything Leo does. He avoids looking at account balances, thinks only in percentages, and sets trades with buy/sell limits before walking away. His discipline lets probabilities, not emotions, do the work. He likens trading to a casino — the edge is built through consistent play, not any single outcome. His advice to new traders: “Work harder than you think you need to, backtest everything, and stay delusional enough to believe in yourself until it works.”