Admirals plans to help South African traders develop their skills and take trading to a new level

Anyone who has tried stock trading for a living has probably got some wild stories to tell. The global stats for traders aren’t great, with more than 70% of forex traders ending up in the red.

“If you do an analysis on the trading methodology of the clients, you find the same patterns,” says Boriss Gubaidulin, regional director for Africa at global trading company Admirals.

“Clients who lack knowledge around trading techniques, don’t educate themselves sufficiently in the instruments they are trading, and miss the importance of good risk management for successful trading tend to bet heavily on a single trade and spread themselves too thin over too many trades.”

Admirals has been in SA since 2022 and is a relative newcomer to the local trading scene. Having obtained Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) licensing and formal registration as a financial services provider (FSP), it has a Category 1 Fais (Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services) licence and has also applied for an ODP (Over-The-Counter Derivatives Product) licence.

Admirals may be new to South Africa but it has an over 20-year track record around the world. The company was recently awarded a trading licence in Kenya but sees South Africa as a launching pad, extending its employee workforce across neighbouring countries. Admirals is headquartered in Estonia, maintaining offices around the world, and is licensed in six jurisdictions – providing trading services in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia and now in Africa.

What sets it apart in a rather crowded field is its plan to create a corps of financially independent traders by investing heavily in financial education and literacy tools.

It does this by offering tutorials and webinars that build expertise one building block at a time. Its Zero to Hero course, available for free, takes beginner traders through the basics to trade set-up and execution within 20 days.

It’s Forex 101 trading course allows newcomers to forex to learn from experienced professionals. Another service offered is so-called copy trading, which allows clients to mimic the trades of successful traders.

“We want to see our clients succeed, and the way we do this is by offering extensive training and daily market updates. Our research shows that customers who invest time and energy in training do better. They apply proper risk management and avoid making the kinds of mistakes that cause others to fail,” says Gubaidulin.

With more than 3 700 Contracts for Difference (CFDs) to trade, the choice can be overwhelming. One of the principles of successful trading is to narrow this down to just a few, study these and invest according to a strict trading plan – which means never going in too heavy on a single trade and exiting early when the trade goes bad, adds Gubaidulin.

“We have an extensive library of tutorials available for free on our website which goes over the importance of proper risk management, as we put a lot of effort on financial literacy,” he adds. “Our analysis demonstrates that customers exercising careful risk management invariably perform better than those who do not. This is the most crucial difference between winners and losers when it comes to trading.”

A CFD is a type of derivative that monitors the price movement of the underlying security without actually owning it. CFDs are available on forex pairs, commodities, indices, stocks and cryptos. These can be turbo-charged with leverage of up to 1:500 – which means small price movements in the underlying security are magnified, which is great when you are winning, but not when you’re losing.

Clients in South Africa can start trading with as little as $25, but are encouraged to kick things off by opening a demo account, where trading strategies can be tested without risking real money.

Why Admirals chose to enter the South African market

“We felt it was important to establish a presence in SA, because there is a vibrant trading community here and we can offer a huge variety of trading instruments at very low trading fees,” says Gubaidulin.

“The other element we can bring to the SA market is financial market education. A lot of competitors offer that too, but we approach it from a different perspective, with the aim to make our clients financially independent investors. To do that, you have to be in this for the long haul.”

It does this through regular seminars and frequent news updates, as well as online tutorials and sessions with investment experts. It also publishes e-books on trading and other topics and supports the KOOD/JÕHVI coding school concept in Estonia for those seeking a career in programming.

Brought to you by Admirals.

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