The book we mostly do not trade.
3E2 trades futures. Forex is here because a genuinely high-probability setup on a major deserves to be taken rather than skipped on principle — but it happens rarely, it happens only inside 3E2IO, and it never touches a funded account. These are the five setups that would qualify.
Forex is the exception, not the book
3E2 is a futures operation. Spot forex is not traded routinely and is never traded on a funded Topstep seat, because that account exists for index futures. These five strategies are kept and documented for one reason: occasionally a setup on a major is clean enough to be worth an exception, and when that happens the trade is taken inside 3E2IO with the same sizing rules as everything else. If you are here for what 3E2 does day to day, the futures and commodities pages are the ones to read.
Trend Following on the Majors
Central banks move at different speeds, and the gap between them drives currency trends that last weeks. Take the breakout as the signal, then buy the fibonacci retracement instead of chasing the move.
- Trigger
- A 4-hour close beyond a 20-period channel high, with a macro reason behind it.
- Entry
- On the retracement into the 0.5–0.618 band of the impulse leg, once it turns back up.
- Invalidation
- Below the retracement low. A break past 0.786 means the impulse was a spike, not a trend.
- Target
- Trailed under successive higher lows for as long as the structure holds.
- Management
- Reduced ahead of the central bank meeting that the whole thesis rests on.
The cost of patience
Waiting for a retracement means missing the trends that never give one, and that happens often enough to hurt. It is a deliberate trade: fewer entries, much smaller stops, and a reward-to-risk that survives being wrong more often than right.
Range Trading in Quiet Pairs
Some pairs spend months going nowhere. Buy the floor, sell the ceiling, keep the stop tight, and accept that the strategy ends the day the range does.
- Trigger
- Price returning to a support or resistance level that has already held at least twice.
- Entry
- Inside the demand or supply zone, on the first candle that closes back away from it.
- Invalidation
- A close beyond the zone. A broken range is a breakout, and this trade is on the wrong side of it.
- Target
- The opposite side of the range, less a small buffer.
- Management
- No range entries in the twenty-four hours around a rate decision for either currency.
Ranges end without warning
This strategy wins small and often, which makes the one loss that matters feel unfair. The protection is a hard stop just beyond the zone and a position size that assumes the range will eventually break — because it always does.
Event-Driven Trading
Scheduled releases move currencies more in one minute than the previous six hours combined. The trade is not the number — it is the overshoot that follows it.
- Trigger
- A high-impact release — CPI, payrolls, a rate decision — with a visible pre-release range.
- Entry
- Only after the first spike fails to extend. Never inside the release candle itself.
- Invalidation
- A new extreme beyond the spike. That is real repricing, not an overshoot.
- Target
- The pre-release range — where price was before the market panicked.
- Management
- Half the normal position size. Spreads widen and slippage is real on these bars.
The most dangerous of the fifteen
Execution risk is the problem here, not analysis. Spreads can triple, stops can fill far past their level, and a genuinely surprising number simply keeps going. Position size is halved for this strategy specifically, and it is skipped entirely on a funded account near a drawdown limit.
Session Overlap Momentum
The Asian session leaves a narrow range. London breaks it and the London–New York overlap carries it. Trade the volume, not a prediction.
- Trigger
- A break of the Asian session high or low once European volume arrives.
- Entry
- On the close beyond the Asian range edge.
- Invalidation
- Back inside the Asian range. A failed break usually reverses to the other edge.
- Target
- Held into the overlap and closed before New York is left trading alone.
- Management
- One break per direction per day, and nothing held past the overlap window.
Volume is the whole edge
Outside the overlap this setup produces the same signals with none of the follow-through, which is why the clock matters more than the chart. On a public holiday in either centre the strategy is simply not traded.
The Carry Trade
Hold a higher-yielding currency against a lower-yielding one and the interest difference is credited daily. It is the smallest and slowest of the fifteen, and the one that can unwind fastest.
- Trigger
- A clear policy rate gap between the two currencies plus falling volatility.
- Entry
- From an accumulation base, with the trend confirmed on the daily chart.
- Invalidation
- Below the base, or any sharp rise in volatility regardless of price.
- Target
- None fixed — the position is held while conditions stay calm and risk-on.
- Management
- Cut on the first genuine volatility spike, before the chart confirms anything.
Slow up, fast down
Carry has a return profile that flatters itself for years and then hands most of it back in a week. History is full of carry unwinds that erased more than a decade of accrued interest in days, so it is sized as the smallest allocation of the three sectors and exits on volatility, not on price.
The other books
The same risk framework runs across all three. What changes is the session, the instrument and the shape of the edge.