ForexVue
Level 8 · Lesson 5 of 14 · 6 min read

Overtrading: Doing Too Much

More trades does not equal more profit. The best traders spend most of their time waiting.

Laurent Researched and written by

The Boredom Problem

You sit at your desk. Charts are open. Nothing meets your criteria. Time passes. The urge to "do something" grows. Eventually, you find a "kind of" setup and take it. Not because it's valid, but because sitting idle feels unproductive.

This is boredom trading, and it's one of the most expensive habits in forex. Every unnecessary trade costs you spread/commission AND risks capital on a setup that doesn't have an edge.

A Real Scenario

A trader's story:

A trader we'll call Ravi tracks his results meticulously. After 3 months, he notices something surprising in his journal: on days when he took 1-2 trades, his average daily P/L was +0.4%. On days when he took 5+ trades, his average daily P/L was -0.8%. His best month had 14 trades total. His worst month had 47.

The data was clear: Ravi's strategy had an edge on selective, high-conviction setups. Every additional trade beyond 2 per day was subtracting value, not adding it. The extra trades weren't generating signal; they were generating cost and noise.

The Math of Overtrading

20 trades/day at 2-pip spread:
Daily spread cost: 40 pips ($400 on standard lots)
Weekly: 200 pips ($2,000)
Monthly: ~800 pips ($8,000)

Your strategy needs to generate $8,000/month in gross profit just to break even on costs. That's before a single losing trade is counted.

The Antidote

  • Set a maximum trade count. "I will take no more than 3 trades per day." This forces selectivity.
  • Treat NOT trading as a skill. Waiting for a valid setup while watching the market is an active decision, not inaction.
  • Log "no trade" days in your journal. If you look back at a week and your best days were the ones you sat on your hands, that tells you everything.
  • Close the platform during dead hours. If your strategy works on London-NY overlap, don't watch Asian session charts. Nothing good comes from staring at flat markets.
Professional reality: Many full-time forex traders take 3-8 trades per WEEK, not per day. They spend most of their time analyzing, planning, and waiting. When they act, it's with high conviction on a fully validated setup.
Try it yourself: For the next 2 weeks, add a column to your journal: "Total trades today." At the end of 2 weeks, plot your daily P/L against your trade count. You'll likely find your sweet spot is far fewer trades than you think.
✅ Check your understanding
Professional forex traders typically take:
✅ Check your understanding
Which of these is a classic overtrading signal?

Key Takeaways

  • • Quality over quantity: 3-5 good setups per week beats 20 mediocre ones.
  • • Boredom trading: watching the market doesn't mean you should be in the market.
  • • Each trade has a cost (spread/commission). 20 trades/day at 2-pip spread = 40 pips in costs alone.
  • • The best traders often do nothing for hours or days. Patience IS the edge.
Glossary: Spread
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