Money is undoubtedly an integral part of our life. As adults, we work to earn money to provide for daily needs and sustain our lives. It is said that money begets money. The first step towards it is to earn it. Once we earn money, we need to use it and also find ways to put money to use or make more money. One way to achieve this is through investments and trading.
Traditionally, the average person has been dependent on investment advisors, professional traders and others in the financial sector to help them with money matters. However, with so much information available and many alternative learning opportunities, the current generation is keen to take matters into their own hands. So, often they learn all that they can through the internet and the rest through experience, which can be a very risky and costly endeavor. Helping such keen learners to develop exceptional trading and investing skills to work towards their financial goals for the past 23 years is Online Trading Academy.
Online Trading Academy (OTA) is an international education organization devoted to providing people with the training, tools, and techniques to learn how to trade long and short-term investments with confidence in the financial market. The Company’s mission of enriching lives worldwide with exceptional trading and investing education has driven the organization to focus intensively on creating a world-class education and support organization that has served over 70,000 students worldwide.
The Ideator
In 2017, Eyal Shahar, the Founder, was inspired once again to work towards fulfilling his dream of providing financial education for anyone who seeks an enriched lifestyle by providing them with software that could help them learn about the markets, place trades with discipline, and manage risk.
In 2018, Mr. Shahar met with his executive team and announced that by January 2019 OTA would start delivering classes in worldwide locations and online using this new education, analysis and trading platform called CliK. Energized by the relentless commitment to creating better experiences for students, the team finalized the Beta version of CliK and launched it around the world. Starting in February 2019, 900 employees and over 100 instructors were trained to support the more than 500 students attending classes every week.
Mr. Shahar’s commitment to his students and team members is reflected not only in his vision and drive, but his resilience to go beyond industry standards. Having been in the education sector for the past 20+ years, he recognized that the students were learning how to trade, but the technology in the industry wasn’t keeping up, nor helping the student to identify opportunities and manage risk.
The trading platform industry was missing something critical – education embedded in the trading platform. Based upon student feedback so far, CliK is filling a void that has existed for over two decades. Mr. Shahar’s tenacity, and his unyielding drive, created an environment where prospective students can join to learn trading skills that effectively manages risk.
Unique Education Model
OTA offers a broad range of educational courses to adults that focus on financial planning, risk management and managing asset portfolios. The learning process typically starts with a three-hour free Preview that introduces basic financial and economic concepts relevant to trading. This is followed by a three-day Orientation class where an OTA instructor expands upon the previously introduced concepts and gives a glimpse of the training OTA provides in each of the asset classes like stocks, futures, options, and forex, how to manage risk and take the emotion out of trading and investing.
The learner then has a wide range of financial education courses to pick and choose from. This includes OTA’s Core Strategy course, Extended Learning Track (XLT) online course, and more for each asset class. These courses can be taken in-person and/or online in both live and self-paced on-demand formats. OTA students are members for life with unlimited access to repeat most classes and access to all of their education resources, without any additional charge, at most centers around the world or online.
OTA empowers learners by developing their skills and instilling confidence to take better control of their finances and direct their own financial future. Whether they are interested in trading daily, managing long-term portfolios, or simply have a clear understanding of how the markets work as they work with their advisor, they learn concepts that aren’t taught in schools. They develop very practical skills in timing the market and how to leverage various asset classes to manage and protect their investments. Dr Jeff Harris, Ph.D, former SEC Chief Economist, provided an independent assessment of the curricula and attests to the efficacy of OTA’s financial education.
Developing Content with Technology
OTA delivers thousands of hours of content every month in the form of articles, videos, webinars, online and in-center classes and guided practice. The content is developed around three main considerations: What changes are impacting the financial industry? What are the instructors researching and developing to better the student experience? And most importantly, what are the students asking for to help them with their educational journey. The content also needs to fit the schedule of busy working people making flexibility a necessity. On-Demand, Online, On Location, and recently added evening classes are supporting those needs along with customization of content.
The real game-changer for OTA and its students has been technology and innovation in the form of CliK. The proprietary analysis platform enables users to identify and score the highest probability trades with a guided step-by-step process similar to tools used by professional traders, banks, and institutional traders.
Mr. Shahar says, “Time and time again, our students share how much easier it is to make decisions and follow the risk management rules they set for themselves because CliK is programmed to tell you when you deviate from those rules.”
CliK is now part of the way OTA teaches and how students learn; in five short months, locations around the network were transitioned to the new interface with seamless execution. Students can enhance their learning and more quickly spend more time practicing in the classroom with CliK than they could previously with other more complicated platforms. With more practice, students gain more confidence to continue their work at home.
Innovating for the Future
Online Trading Academy loves to be blazing a new trail and it starts from the top. Mr. Shahar is committed to leading the way, forging and delivering the educational experiences and cutting-edge CliK technologies in all asset classes by the end of 2020. He continues to surge forward with an exhaustive roadmap of additional features and enhancements to help students develop the confidence to analyse and execute trades in the financial markets.
