Key Market Insights & Investment Trends Post-Forex Expo

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This is the Morning Drive, it's Mira Business FM. Forex Dubai wrapped up this week, and it brought together traders and investors and brokers, FinTech players, lots of people from across the region. But with the Expo now over, what are the key market trends, investment themes perhaps, that emerge from the conversations?

So, to separate the signal from the noise, we've got a finance educator, an entrepreneur, and the founder behind Dominion Markets, Raja Zahoor, who might be better known to, I think, something like 2 million followers on YouTube and Instagram, as Raja Banks. He's with me. It's good to meet you.

Raja Zahoor (0:40)

Yeah, good to be here.

SPEAKER_1 (0:42)

Good to have you with us. I want to talk to you about Forex Expo Dubai in a minute, but I'm interested in you, first of all, because 2 million followers is something. You're now based here in the UAE. You moved from Canada, I believe.

So, give me the scoop, the skinny on Raja Banks quickly.

Raja Zahoor (1:04)

So, basically, my real name is Raja Zahoor, right? So, this Raja Banks was a name that the community gave to me. It's a funny thing because there was one, there was this video of me. I was heading in the car and I had some cash in my hand, and I'm looking at the camera.

I'm just listening to music, and out of nowhere, I start recording, and I start throwing money at the camera, and I'm saying, my name is Raja, my name is Raja, my name is Raja Banks. And I did that. So, that video went semi-viral at that time, this like around back in 2017 So, from there, everyone just started to call me Raja Banks, and then this whole character and the name just...

SPEAKER_1 (1:48)

And this whole career was born. So, you're known for being a finance educator. What was it that made you decide this is my path? I want to make sure that people understand money.

Raja Zahoor (1:59)

You know, to be honest, I think everyone has an alter ego, right? Everyone has an alter ego.

So, I sort of embraced this character of Raja Banks. So, whenever I see myself online or see a video of me, I tell my wife, hey, look, I don't think that's the real me. That's the Raja Banks.

SPEAKER_1 (2:19)

That's like the amped up.

Raja Zahoor (2:21)

Yes.

SPEAKER_1 (2:21)

That's okay.

Raja Zahoor (2:22)

Yeah, exactly. So, from that point, a lot of people started asking me about questions about like, you know, online trading, how can I make money online? What's the best way to do it? Should I risk a large amount? Should I go slow?

You know, so that's where this being of Raja Banks came in to actually allocate your capital and like to go slow, be very, very risk averse and stuff like this.

SPEAKER_1 (2:46)

Okay. So, was this what you had done as a career or was this kind of a side hustle?

Raja Zahoor (2:51)

Oh, no. I wanted, I actually wanted to be a hacker.

You know, I did computer sciences in university, you know, and I wanted to go in the tech side of business and I wanted to like, you know, be like an ethical hacker for bigger companies that would eventually pay me well, right? But that stuff got boring along the way, so I had to leave. And in the middle, I did a lot of things. I worked on the oil rigs after leaving university. I did door-to-door sales. So this whole trading stuff, I sort of like fell into it.

You know, I saw someone making money online, and I saw that very interesting because I was running a sales company before, and I saw that there's someone who's making more than me, sitting at home. I'm like, how is that possible?

SPEAKER_1 (3:37)

It's attractive.

Raja Zahoor (3:38)

Yeah, I'm like, what is this?

Right? So from that point, sort of like, you know, things started to change a little bit. You know, in the beginning, I lost money and then I tried to learn more about it. Why am I losing? You know, so those were very important steps in the beginning. Okay.

SPEAKER_1 (3:52)

So you fell into it. You're here in UAE. Let's talk a little bit about the Expo. You've spent the week kind of interacting with people, thousands of people, I suppose, traders and investors. Out of the event, what's the overriding mood? What's the narrative?

Tell me the stories. What was the overriding kind of take away for you?

Raja Zahoor (4:17)

You know, to be honest, at the Expo, we meet people from two different areas, right? Number one, you have your young, ambitious traders who want to make a lot of money really fast. And then on the other hand, you have your more mature investors who are looking to see, they're okay, how can we get small returns over like a longer time span? Right? So the traders who came up to us, they were like, okay, you know what? Now, let's say gold, right? I'm sure you've seen what happened with the state of Hormoz and how that affected the markets. You're oil, gold. They were like massive moves, massive. Tim, the moves that we used to see in gold a year ago, if you said to somebody that these moves are going to be double in volume in a year, everyone will be saying, no, you're like a joking at this point.