Forex trading most preferred: OTA

Currency trading in Dubai is gaining prime importance as more people get enrolled to try their luck on making smart buck, said Tareq Abu Hantash, General Manager, Online Trading Academy.

"We have witnessed a slight increment in the number of people in first-half of 2016 who came to attend the Market Timing Orientation as compared with the first half of 2015. We have noticed an increased demand from people working in the oil and gas sector who are looking to learn and master the skills of online trading for the purpose of generating monthly income and to manage their portfolio," said Hantash.

"There is a significant increase in the number of people taking up online trading of Foreign exchange (Forex) in the Middle East and this region is a big target for broker/ dealer companies. When it comes to the business trend we have seen companies being cautious in their hiring and spending. Thankfully, the GCC economies are witnessing some relief due to the recovery in oil prices since January of this year. We might see economic activities spur given the Expo 2020 in Dubai and FIFA World Cup 2022 in Doha." The institute is currently planning its expansion in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.

"Online trading of Forex can be very profitable if you have the right education and expertise behind you. The key is to manage risk and employ winning strategies. We have been training students to exploit these opportunities for close to 20 years now. Education is a key thing in trading, it's important to think and act like the big Institutions, not like retail trader," said Hantash.

Two students of OTA, well established professionals are planning to make currency trading their prime source of income given the right skills acquired from OTA. Nilanjan, finance professional with 15 years plus experience across fixed income and commercial credit, said: "My key learning from OTA is how to manage risk. There are many trading gurus who teach how to make money - few focus on risk management as core part of the teaching as OTA does. I know this as OTA was not my first exposure to trading education. Through razor-sharp focus on risk management and sticking to the trade plan, one can achieve consistent result. Another key learning is how to separate the news and views from what the price is telling you and be guided by what the market is telling you rather than trying to decide what it must do. As it is said, markets can remain irrational much longer than one can stay solvent. Also, what makes OTA training particularly powerful is focus on how to best use multiple asset classes to generate optimum return from markets, irrespective of what a specific market may be doing at some point- in order to generate consistent return on your capital."

Nilanjan plans to make currency trading as a source of long term capital growth and some secondary income. "I consider this as a life skill that I would like to further develop upon and potentially take up as full time profession at some point. As I mentioned, today jobs are not for life, only skills are."

Endorsing similar sentiments is Ashraf Saad, engineer, currently programme director in an international company, married and has 2 kids, 38 years old, Egyptian, said " I joined OTA 2 years back and very passionate about currency trading. OTA helps to develop core strategy and to be disciplined, professional trading and risk management. I have been trading professionally for a close to a year and though currently it is a secondary source of income, I aim to make it my prime source of income within two years."

Take on currency trends

Bachir Chaaya, Instructor, Forex/Futures/ProTrader, Online Trading Academy, said: "Currency trading is likely to continue in the same fashion as it's been for many years, however in times of high uncertainty we expect greater volatility and larger price moves, which is great for the educated trader, and devastating for the un-educated novice trader."

Pound to reverse to pre-Brexit

Chaaya informs Brexit has weakened the GBP in the short term, but the long term (monthly) chart is indicates that we are hitting a strong demand zone, from which we expect GBP to reverse back higher to at least its pre-Brexit levels if not more. Also from a long term perspective, Euro is negatively affected by Brexit, both the technical and the fundamentals suggest that, as more countries become tempted to follow in the footsteps of UK as immigration and border control become bigger issues.

Euro's been moving in a range of 1.0400~1.1700 for the last 2 years, eventually it will break out of this range, and from the looks of things the break out may very well be lower towards parity.

Chaaya, said: " For the last two years, ?/£ has been offering some good volatility (even for the short term income trader), and the technical (supply and demand levels) have been very respected. EUR/GBP is now at a monthly supply zone, from which we expect it to reverse lower. This is further supported by our bearish bias on EUR, and bullish bias on GBP."

- sandhya@khaleejtimes.com