General News
The Winning Habits of Successful Forex Traders
By Abiola Akinyele, General Manager of FXTM Nigeria
Who is a forex trader?
A forex trader is an individual who exchanges one currency for another in the global financial market. The financial market is an over-the-counter (OTC) market, where financial instruments are traded. It is considered the largest and most liquid market in the world, with a daily turnover of over 5.6 trillion dollars.
Anyone who wishes to become a successful trader is responsible for honing their skills through education and consistent practice. At FXTM, we believe educated traders are successful traders, which is why we run very detailed seminars and workshops, both at an introductory and advanced level at our offices and training centers here in Nigeria.
Anyone can train to become a disciplined trader, through self-analysis to see what drives their operations and also learning from their mistakes &forex psychology.
It is a fact that successful traders think and act differently. They usually have specific habits and usually follow a series of steps or patterns which guide them daily as they trade in the markets.
When you start trading forex, you know that it can be very lucrative and rewarding, but this does not mean that you do not have risks, or that 100% of the time you will be successful. It is important that you master the basic concepts and understand the foundations necessary to excel to become successful.
Get going!
To achieve what you want, you must focus on trading and make it part of your daily actions. You must alsounderstand that behavior is an integral part of the trading process and thus your attitude and mindset should reflect the following attributes. Let’s have a look.
- Manage your money
There is not a single successful trader who does not know how to manage their money. The art of understanding money management – knowing how much you can invest and afford to risk, in addition to being able to establish the appropriate losses and thus take profits at the right time, are skills that are indispensable and that you must acquire. You must preserve your capital always and at all costs, in order to possibly generate wealth in the long-term.
- Manage your emotions
Remember that in forex trading there is no place for emotion of any kind.If both the winners and the losers act in the same way, the operations will be executed in a more professional manner and without drastic changes.
You can achieve this with calmness and dedication; for example, if you are upset because one of your trades is experiencing losses, try to take a break from the trade. You can reintegrate once you have calmed down.
Avoid making any emotional decisions, as this can lead you to commit commercial mistakes and disasters that will result in losses.
- Take advantage of demo accounts and use them until you are ready
Demo accounts are usually a great way to test the waters in a place where it is not risky since you do not lose real money.
This applies above all if you are a newbie and so you can try different trading platforms. But once you feel very prepared to start a live account, you may try it, and take a chance.
- Run your winners in order to have as many benefits as possible
Now, in the financial markets, there are many beginners who think that the best traders are the ones who are always right. This is a myth because in the world of trading, not everything is theory.
Then, once you have found an asset in which you are good, hold on to it and learn to polish that skill. You should always learn to obtain benefits that are significant enough as this is the only way in which you can cover your losses.
- Cut losses early
By taking into account how difficult it is to beprofitable in the competitive forex world, you must keep an eye on them and are willing to cut losses ahead of time, even if they are your profitable trades.
This means that when the market moves against you, you should not trust that it will return soon. Of course, unless there is a signal that is clear and precise and expresses what will happen in the market, in that case, leave soon and go to the next, always with the hope that it might beprofitable.
- Learn from your mistakes and see them as knowledge
You learn while doing it. That is why you should not allow a bad experience to truncate the path to success.
It’s a learning curve that would allow better decision-making in the future.
- Find the perfect strategy and repeat
It is well-known that trading can belike a big battle to take money out of the market. And to be able to achievethis in the most appropriateway, you will need a repeatable and efficient strategy that works for you in the long run. The market is always changing, which means that you will sometimes need to make adjustments to your strategy. That way, you will mightmore chances to win if you can find a way to make your strategy works. Don´t waste more time.
- Separate your life habits from the trading habits
It is important that you can make time and maintain a balanced lifestyle to your life outside of trading. Having a healthy and calm lifestyle requires that you take regular breaks from trading during the day. This will help you to make better trading decisions and as a result, you will have more chances of being successful.
- Search and use methods that have been tested and you can prove it.
Do not believe everything you read and see on the internet, remember that it is a minefield of lies and people seeking profits on the backs of frauds.
That is why you should look for a real test of the methods that are being promoted to you and verify that they really work well.
This insurance process can include going with current trends, also reducing your losses, in case you are seeing a benefit, or letting go.
- Never forget the risk / reward
Do not forget that there is always a risk before a reward. The ratio of risk to reward is not going to be the same all the time, due to the fast-moving nature of the financial market. There are times when it may seem that you are failing in the trade with the risk you see, only so that everything can become a reward in this way.
Then you can proceed to make your withdrawals and they can be about half of your returns or even less. Youmust pay attention and definitely not expect for every tradesto produce profits every time.
- Keep a trade journal
By having a trading diary, you can keep a record ofyour winning positions as well as the losing ones. It is also important to also point out the characteristics that led you to that position, and be able to analyse these results.
It is necessary to be very orderly in the life of a trader, since keeping a record of trades gives the trader a really objective platform and thus be able to better understand both their options and their decisions. All of these are importantin order to improve the process of trading.
- Take responsibility for your movements
This habit is linked to controlling your emotions, with the difference that this time you mustn’t just control your emotions, but that you have to accept them.
You must take responsibility for each of the movements/decisions you make, and you should not blame anyone for your losses. Equally, this means no one but you gets credit for your profits. Do notinvest in more than what you can afford to lose.
- It’s not just habits that make the trader, it’s the personality too
Habits are important because they form a routine for the traderand make them a person who follows certain steps that will lead him to their next gains. However, personality also plays one of the most important roles in being successful trader andit is the perfect complement for these habits to work in their entirety.
A trader must have a defined personality in order to predict a pattern of behavior that will not only help them to understand the market better, but also the way in which the same trader manages that market.
For example, there are traders who are calm and determined; in case they are not 100% sure of a trade, they may decide not to go ahead withit and thus maintain their current balance.In this way, they remain a cautious and patient trader.
At the same time, there are traders who take risks and this can lead them to have big profits,or big losses. Regardless of personality type, the important thing is that the trader knows themselves, knows what kind of habits are indicators for them and whattheir movements are in the market.
Summary
Finding at least one advantage in forex trading will help keep you in a superior position; having good tradinghabits can certainly be one of these advantages.
These habits that were explained previously serve for all types of traders, since if there is something that all successful traders have in common, is that everyone must maintain good habits in order to be successful. Organize yourself and create a routine with habits that couldlead you to success.
Abiodun Maccarthy, former bank employee, has been arraigned before Justice Mojisola Dada of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, over an alleged ₦423 million fraud involving a customer’s fixed deposit investment.
Maccarthy was brought before the court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday, July 31, 2025.
He faces a four-count charge bordering on stealing and forgery, offences said to be in violation of Sections 278 and 361(1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.
According to a statement by Dele Oyewale, spokesperson, EFCC, the defendant allegedly converted ₦423 million out of a ₦650 million deposit made in 2018 by a client, Great Endurance Bureau De Change, for a fixed deposit investment.
The funds were reportedly diverted for his personal use while he was still in the bank’s employ.
To conceal the alleged fraud, Maccarthy was said to have forged a fixed deposit investment certificate bearing slip number 332540, which he issued to the client as proof of the transaction.
One of the counts reads: “Abiodun Maccarthy, sometime in 2018 at Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, dishonestly converted to your own use the sum of ₦423,000,000.00 (Four Hundred and Twenty-Three Million Naira), money which forms part of ₦650,000,000.00 (Six Hundred and Fifty Million Naira) paid to you by Great Endurance Bureau De Change for fixed deposit investment while you were in the bank’s employ.”
Another count adds that he “with intent to defraud, forged a fixed deposit investment certificate with slip no. 332540 and issued same to Great Endurance Bureau De Change as evidence of investment.”
Maccarthy pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Following his plea, B. M. Isah, prosecution counsel requested a trial date and urged the court to remand the defendant in a Correctional Centre.
Justice Dada granted the request and adjourned the case until October 22, 2025, while ordering that Maccarthy be remanded in custody.
Tony Elumelu, group chairman of Heirs Holdings and UBA, has listed strengthening fiscal capacity, driving operational efficiency, and unlocking innovative financing as three key things Africa must do to truly rise and bridge its infrastructure gap.
L-r: Faustin-Archange Touadéra, president, Central African Republic; and Mr. Tony Elumelu, group chair, UBA and Heirs Holdings and Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation.
Elumelu, also founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, urged Africa to enable the private sector to co-lead infrastructure development.
He stated all these in his keynote address at the African Caucus meeting held in Bangui, Central African Republic.
The meeting was themed, ‘Resilient Infrastructure, Human Capital, and Green Assets’.
Elumelu highlighted that across Africa, there is a deep and persistent infrastructure divide.
“From roads to ports, power to internet connectivity, we lag behind. We cannot achieve prosperity without the foundations of modern development. Without addressing these gaps, we cannot unlock the growth and prosperity our people deserve,” he said.
He emphasised that energy access is the most critical enabler or barrier to Africa’s progress, pointing out that up to 70% of Africans still lack access to electricity.
“My home country, Nigeria, generates less than 7,000 megawatts for over 200 million people.
“If we are to industrialise, create jobs, and participate meaningfully in the global AI revolution, we must invest aggressively in energy from renewables to cleaner gas-based solutions. Imagine what Nigeria’s economy could become with 100,000 megawatts of reliable, affordable energy. That is the scale of transformation we need”, he said.
Elumelu called for a stronger role for the private sector in infrastructure delivery, citing the work of Transcorp and Heirs Energies as an example of how private capital can address public challenges.
“We are generating power, exporting it through the West African Power Pool, and using gas from our oil operations to power our plants. This is Africapitalism in action,” he said.
Africapitalism, he explained, is the belief that Africa’s private sector must lead in driving economic transformation through long-term investments that generate both economic and social returns.
But for Africapitalism to succeed, he said, strong public-private partnerships are essential.
“Governments must create the right environment. The private sector must bring capital and innovation. And our development partners must support Africa’s realities – including recognising gas as a viable transition fuel on our path to clean energy”, he added.
On Africa’s human capital, Elumelu underscored that no resource is more valuable than the continent’s people especially its youth.
“Africa is the youngest continent on earth, with over 60% of our population under 35. This presents both our greatest asset or our greatest risk,” he said. “If empowered, our youth can transform Africa. If neglected, they can become a source of instability.”
Through the Tony Elumelu Foundation, he said, over 24,000 young entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries have been empowered with non-refundable seed capital of USD5,000 each.
The foundation has also trained 1.5 million youths and catalysed 1.2 million jobs. “These entrepreneurs are creating jobs, building businesses, and changing lives,” he noted.
To conclude his address, Elumelu delivered three powerful messages.
“Africa’s development is our responsibility. No one else will do it for us. Africa’s future is in our hands. No one will build this continent for us. We must lead,” he said. “Power is everything. No industrial revolution can happen without electricity. We must prioritise energy. Without power, there can be no progress.”
And finally, “We must invest in our youth. They are not just our future, they are our present.”
He commended the growing focus of global institutions on Africa, referencing his role on the IMF Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship and Growth and expressing optimism about the renewed emphasis on job creation as a path to sustainable development.
He also praised the World Bank’s ‘Mission 300’ initiative led by President Ajay Banga, which aims to connect 300 million Africans to electricity
“Africa is ready,” Elumelu declared. “Let’s seize this moment and build the prosperous, empowered continent our people deserve”.
Prof. Ademola Tayo, the Vice Chancellor, Babcock University, has unveiled a 2,000-seater capacity ICT Centre, built and equipped with modern ICT facilities by New Horizons, a foremost ICT Training Institute.
The three-storey building has six classrooms in each floor that can accommodate a minimum of 50 students in a class, including seat-outs, offices and halls that are fully equipped with flat-screen computers and modern ICT facilities that cut across Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, Internet of Things (IoTs), among others.
Speaking at the unveiling, which marks part of the university’s 23rd convocation activities, the Vice Chancellor thanked New Horizons for the donation of the facility to the university community, which he said, would boost learning of new ICT skills, including AI.
“The university has been in collaboration with New Horizons for the training of our students in ICT certification courses. The reason why our students are doing very well in their studies is because of the digital literacy skills that New Horizon is offering our students. Every student from level-one takes ICT certification courses offered by New Horizon and that has helped the students to excel in their studies,” the Vice Chancellor said.
Mr. Tim Akano, CEO, New Horizons Nigeria, said: “We are not unveiling the building alone. We are also unveiling the resources inside the building. We brought in customized all-in-one systems, including some equipment for Robotics and AI. We also made provision for a garden and we are dedicating the garden to the five principal officers of the university. Each of them will plant a symbolic lemon tree that signifies health, prosperity, fidelity, cleansing, longevity, protection and love.”
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