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I got some interesting emails during the week but there’s one in particular that I thought I should respond to right here on the column because it addresses the concerns of several other people. Here it goes:
“Hello Mr. Olowu,
I was very enlightened by your Business Day write up and want to commend you for bringing financial literacy closer to the doorsteps of lay folks like me.  You know on the subject matter raised I want to ask you if you have checked out any of the Lagos radio station-based interviews on Forex Trading most especially by one [name withheld] who calls himself the Forex Professor and its very mouth-watering returns of 10-30% of your invested capital daily. What do you really think of it? Is it all that rosy? I thought about it that if I had loose change will it make sense to invest in it or is the guy simply another “marketer” desperate to sell his service?
And there’s a site I once visited I don’t know if you heard of these guys, www.dailyxxxx.com I saw it as a link once and it’s like after subscribing to their newsletter, there’s almost a daily promise of great returns accruable to one in a variety of ways. It’s something I’d like you to check out and please kindly give me your opinion on. 
Finally, in all honesty, are you breaking even in the forex business or has it had more bad days than good? Thanks again for your piece and have a lovely week. Looking forward to hearing from you! Lowo O. GRA, Ikeja.” 
Hi Lowo,
Hope you’re doing great. Sorry for the delay in responding to your email; it’s been really busy around here. I’ll try to address your concerns briefly.
First off, anyone who promises 10-30% returns daily is probably insincere or fairly callous with his/her trading. Don’t get me wrong. It is very possible to make 30% or even much more in a day but that means that you’re obviously using too much leverage.
Over-leveraging shows that the trader(s) in question has little or no idea of what good capital management is. Furthermore, the greatest disadvantage with using too much leverage is the fact that one bad day could wipe out your entire account! I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt so I wouldn’t say he/she is a fraud but you should be cautious.
Also keep in mind that forex is usually a business of probabilities and cumulatives. It is not common to find even the best professional traders ‘assuring’ you of 10-30% every single day.
About the website you visited, such sites have been around for a long time. This particular one is mainly an advisory service that primarily deals with American stocks (not forex) and even though it looks good, you’ve still got to be careful. If you’re really interested in trading North American stocks, you can give it a try but note that stocks usually require more capital to trade since they are not as highly leveraged as forex. 
You need to be even more cautious in cases where the service has to do with actually managing your funds. Many of the websites that require you to deposit funds and receive outrageous returns are frauds and some even attempt to install malicious codes and software on your system. A few of them do pay for a while but hardly any stands the test of time because they’re basically ponzi schemes; They stay afloat by using funds from new subscribers to pay the older ones. Once the tide of fresh subscribers begins to wane, they start having serious problems.
Finally, I’m definitely doing well with my forex trading. If I wasn’t, I’d probably have given up long ago and I surely wouldn’t be writing two separate articles every week for Business Day which happens to be probably the most reputable business daily in this country. It might also interest you to know that I have almost 300 students from 5 continents. Like I always say, forex is not rocket science but you do need to invest in training and spend quality time practicing.
You should also be conscious that forex often comes with positive and negative trades, which is why you must be psychologically prepared. Ultimately, the most important thing is that your good trades outweigh the bad ones. That way, you’ll always come out ahead at the end of the day.