Looking for the best Forex traders in Africa. This topic is very close to my heart because I monitored the start of the retail forex market in Africa in 2004 and have followed this market to its present state. I have witnessed the market evolution, seen the highs and lows, seen the charlatans come and go, and saw the resolute ones remain.
The forex market in Africa has significantly evolved in many ways. There is now a generation of forex traders that have emerged and taken the FX market by storm and they operate from Africa’s biggest markets.
Which is the Biggest African Forex Market?
In terms of market size, Nigeria takes the pole position as the country with the most forex traders in Africa. According to guardian.ng, It is estimated that there is an active trading population of about 200,000. South Africa and Kenya come in second and third with 190,000 and 50,000 traders respectively. The rest of Africa has about 750,000 traders, which brings the total trading population in Africa somewhere around 1.3 million. Traders in North Africa typically use forex brokers in the MENA region.
In terms of the development of trading infrastructure and architecture, there is somewhat of a reversal of the positioning, as South Africa and Kenya occupy the top two positions, with Nigeria coming third. South Africa and Kenya have an organized regulatory structure put in place by the financial market regulators in those countries. Nigeria still does not have an organized forex regulatory structure, despite discussions to this effect by its policymakers. This point is important as regulation has been shown to increase confidence in the markets where it exists. This explains why there is a lot of foreign investment flow into the South African forex market, but very little in Nigeria and Ghana.
Interestingly, South Africa and Kenya boast of locally regulated forex brokerage houses, allowing the traders in those countries to deposit their capital within the local brokerage is domiciled in their countries. In contrast, nearly all Nigeria’s forex Traders deposit their money with offshore brokers in Europe and the Caribbean islands. According to an article Forex Broker Reviews published by TradingBeasts, opting for a non-regulated broker is generally very risky and not recommended as such FX brokers do not provide any real investor protection.
With such a robust and organized infrastructure, it is not surprising to see that a lot of the best forex traders in Africa come from Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Many of these traders are showcasing their craft on various channels and industry events in Africa and around the world.
List of the 3 Best Forex Traders in Africa
1. 🥇Michael Anyimah
2. 🥈Michael Huddleston
3. 🥉Adetunji Adeshina
These three forex traders in Africa with demonstrable records have distinguished themselves in the world of FX trading without making so much noise about it.
Michael Anyimah
Zenith Bank International is one of Nigeria’s biggest banks, and the largest by asset base. In 2017, the bank tripled its profits, from N20.7 billion (53,7M USD) in 2016 to N68 billion in 2017 (176M USD). At the time, Nigeria was in a deep recession and banks were not lending. So a large chunk of the bank’s profits came from derivatives trading. The head of the derivatives desk of the bank is the forex trader we shall profile here. His name? Michael Anyimah.
Anyimah was an FX trader with Citigroup Nigeria between July 2005 and March 2008, where he honed his FX trading skills. He took over as Head of FX, Derivatives and Sales Trading at Zenith Bank in 2008. Anyimah, a graduate of Actuarial Science with an MBA from the University of Lagos, is a CFA. In 2019, he was poached by First Bank of Nigeria, a bank that has traditionally not been a strong earner in the FX and Derivatives Trading Sector. In fact, First Bank earned in 2018, only 7% of what Anyimah and his team earned in 2017 in Zenith Bank. Anyimah was snapped up by First Bank to improve these numbers.
Michael Huddleston
Matthew Huddleston is a South African FX trader who has been trading and lecturing about the markets since 1996. He goes by the moniker “Inner Circle Trader”. While he is known to be very secretive, he has only started to emerge from the shadows. He started trading commodities in 1992, but switched to index trading and the bond markets, before he delved into FX futures. He started to trade spot forex, which he has been doing exclusively since 2006.
Unlike many self-styled gurus or “best traders”, he has been able to train and mentor several students with verifiable profiles and trading results on social media and he has a large following in South Africa, basically because he has trained several traders who are actually profiting.
Adetunji Adeshina
Adetunji Adeshina is a certified market technician and Managing Partner of Trendonomics. He is also the Convener of the Traders, Investors and Analysts (TIA) Meetup, an annual event that brings together the industry professionals in Lagos, Nigeria.
Tunji Adeshina is an example of a trader who by his own admission, had to unlearn a lot of the garbage he acquired over the years and replaced them with professional training as to how the FX markets operate. Since then he has done well for himself and his firm and continues to lead the way in terms of FX training and the teaching of technical analysis in Nigeria. He is also a guest contributor to the financial markets programming in TVC News, Nigeria.
But you may ask: how about all those traders we see on YouTube displaying cash and other items supposedly acquired from the proceeds of trading? The truth is many of them are fake. They do not have the proper track records to back up their claims, and indeed several due diligence checks have exposed many of these as fakes. Some operate Ponzi schemes and you need to be careful of such.
How Can You Meet the Best Forex Traders in Africa?
Your best bet is to meet them in industry events and forex trade shows. There is the Lagos Forex Show, which usually holds in Lagos, as well as the Africa Forex Show which is hosted in South Africa. These are annual shows, which had to take a break in 2024 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. These shows have been rescheduled for 2024.
There is also a Financial Trade Show which is to hold in several countries of Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya), along with a similar show to be held in Dubai. These are all scheduled to hold between December 2024 and February 2024.
You can also check out professional bodies such as the UK Society of Technical Analysts, the Egyptian Society of technical analysts, the technical analysis Society of Nigeria and other similar bodies across the continents. These are national bodies that are affiliated to the International Federation of Technical Analysts, and therefore constitute a database of Traders with proven professional training and capacity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is forex trading legal in Africa?
Yes, and growing exponentially.
Who is the best forex trader in Africa?
See our list of the 3 Best forex traders in Africa.
How many forex traders are there in Africa?
About 1.3 million.
Who are the leading countries in forex trading in Africa?
South Africa and Nigeria.
Which African countries are forex-friendly?
South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Namibia, Ivory Coast and many more.
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