The Forex Traders Building Schools — Meet WWA Aid
The world of finance isn’t one that’s traditionally associated with charity. Or good will. Or decency, compassion, altruism or… really… anything positive.
Decades of scandals, frauds, schemes, conspiracies and bailouts have relegated anyone who deals with money for a living to a lower status than lawyers, or paparazzi.
And it’s this world that three young Forex traders operate in. Waqar Asim, Alex Garcia, and Waly Khan — founders of WWA Trading — are, in many ways, prototypical day traders.
Young, ambitious and quick to share their incredible trades, they make no secret of their success. Despite all three still being in full-time education, the traders are all highly-regarded in the world of Forex (short for foreign exchange, and shorthand for day-trading).
Whilst Waly, Alex and Waqar all boast thousands of followers on Instagram — along with accounts postered with the traditional trappings of success at a young age — their popularity on the picture-sharing-platform is far surpassed by their presence on Telegram, where each trader documents their astonishing trades (often with risk-to-reward ratios in excess of 1:100) and invites their followers to ‘back-test’ their moves.
In 2019, the trio founded WWA Trading — an organisation which teaches other traders how to do so using their same techniques — and were instantly inundated with thousands of students wishing to to learn the secrets to the trades that made them famous.
As in-person and online ‘WWA Bootcamps’ were instantly sold out, and free virtual events became oversubscribed to the point that Zoom would no longer accept new attendees, WWA Trading became one of the most sought-after and highly-regarded Forex training programs in the world.
So far so good?
Of course, as with any online course, one question looms over WWA Trading.
If these traders really are as skilled as they purport to be, why are they teaching others… instead of trading?
For most teachers (not doers) the answer is simple: it’s easier (and more profitable) to teach. Why jump in the mines looking for gold, when you can sell people shovels?
It’s an accusation that plagues nearly every online ‘guru’, and whilst many come up with creative responses and missions to dispel these notions, WWA Trading are transparent about their motives.
I spoke to Waqar Asim who was upfront about the creation of their education company.
“Make no mistake, this is a money-making enterprise. Just not in the way you think. We’re not looking for students or mentees. We’re looking for the next generation of traders who we’re assured understand our methods. Every bootcamp for us is an opportunity to network and vet future traders to join our organisation.”
“We’re not looking for students, we’re looking for traders”
Waqar explains that, when they start their own fund and work with outside investors, they will require their own army of traders — just like any hedge fund.
It’s a refreshing response and also explains why, unlike other Forex education ‘programs’ that are sold at suspiciously-low prices, with slick sales pages and no barrier to entry, the WWA Bootcamp is only available to established traders looking to further their careers.
“We’d rather a room full of empty seats with a handful of serious traders than one packed with amateurs who we will never realistically work with.”
But — particuarly for co-founder Waly Khan — there is another upside to the education business…
In early 2017, Waly and his uncle, Fauzlu Miah, created Team Iinsaniun, (Iinsanium meaning ‘humanity’) a humanitarian aid team which primarily supported the Muslim Charity, in response to numerous crises presenting in Bangladesh, including the Rohingya Burmese refugee crisis, and widespread hunger and lack of access to education.
As well as raising money for international organisations, and local charities, members of Team Iinsanium also visited affected areas, offering their own labour and help to some of the most under-priviledged members of the Bangladeshi community.
Within three years, Team Iinsanium’s efforts had resulted in the construction of three schools, three hospitals, five mosques, 400 homes for refugees fleeing violence and persecution, permanent water supply to over 50,000 people and an astonishing 400,000 meals.
In early 2020, after Waly had found success as a trader, and as WWA Trading went from strength-to-strength, he approached his co-founders and fellow traders and proposed a collaboration with Team Iinsanium.
“It wasn’t so much a revelation: charity has always been important to me and part of my faith. I feel an obligation to donate both money, time and resources where I can. But as we found greater financial success and became an authority in our space, with thousands of followers, I realised our potential to make an even bigger difference was enormous. We had to act”
WWA Aid was formed. Whilst Waly admits they could have quietly donated to Team Iinsanium, he stresses that it wasn’t just a financial impact they wanted to make.
“As we educate the next generation of traders, it’s important to us that we’re able to impart a sense of responsibility and gratitude for the returns that can result from this career choice. WWA Aid is a statement: it’s part of WWA Trading, something that we believe in, and that every one of our students can believe in too”
After almost a year of operating, WWA Aid has supported Team Iinasnium in its efforts distributing food packs and blankets to orphaned children in refugee camps in Bangladesh, provided 500 meals to orphaned children living on the streets, and 720 female hygiene packs.
For Waqar, Waly and Alex, these are still relatively-small accomplishments.
“We’re aware we’ve been lucky in our lives (says Alex Garcia), and whilst we’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far, we’re also enourmously-ambitious. As we grow WWA Trading and our own fund, we’re confident we can make even bigger contributions to the world, and not just build schools, hospitals and homes, but to effect a systematic change to help end poverty and repeated huminatarian crises.”
If Waqar, Waly and Alex’s rapid growth, success and ascension as traders, is anything to go by, this ambition is well-founded.
After all, they’ve achieved something no one thought possible: bringing charity into the world of finance.
James Watkins is a Forex trader and occasional contributor to financial blogs and trade magazines.
