Forex Nation’s Danielle Lehrer on Financial Markets: Mindfulness is the Key

In the second part of our exclusive interview, the Forex Nation founder, Danielle Lehrer gives her view on the FX industry, on markets, and on the esoteric side to trading. Part 1 of the interview can be read here.

The company offers a truly unique construct among brokers, i.e. the option of donating all company profits generated from clients’ spread/commission fees to worthy charitable causes across the globe.

1. You mentioned previously that in your view brokers aren’t fully transparent, what do you mean by that?

For example, brokers aren’t up front regarding their changeover time, whether they run a desk, what is the difference between what a client believes is an account with no commission where actually there is a spread based commission and that makes your stops more likely to be hit from spread blowout than if you were actually paying a commission, therefore a commission based account tends to be cheaper for the clients long term

The industry doesn’t talk about these issues because of the B-book model. The industry hasn’t been interested in seeing a greater percentage of their clients win because they make money from them losing.

2. What is your view of B-Book?

At Forex Nation we do not believe in the B-book model out of principle and to avoid conflicts of interest. We do not B-book any client orders whatsoever.

3. What types of trader education or support do you currently provide or foresee ForexNation providing?

We have a fairly holistic approach to trading, the things that we’ll be teaching clients is: how the industry operates so they understand the mechanics and how to play the game. And we’re also going to talk to them about the things that have made us successful. And that’s to do with the concept of being ‘in the zone’, and although that’s what you often hear successful traders say, most people don’t understand how to do that.

And the way we do it is through meditation, movement, proper nutrition and community. So we’re actually looking to create a happier and more fulfilling way to trade forex. And to teach people how to live a fabulous forex life. Its not about sitting in front of your monitor for 8-12 hours a day, hoping that losing trades come back in your favour. Its about having these other practises in your life that make you mindful and enable you to tap into your intuition as a trader. To be more certain about your trades, to be less hesitant about your entry and exits and less concerned about the losses and less bedazzled by the wins. If you’re going to trade for a living, these concepts are more important than the indicators that you choose.

4. Why base yourself in Australia?

This is where I live. And we’re global anyway. We are very quickly creating partnerships globally in countries all around the world so we can have local offices around the world. It doesn’t really matter where we’re based because in order to keep our business as cost effective as possible so we can donate the most amount of money to our charitable projects. To set our business up as virtually as possible makes a lot sense for us. So our team is remote and based all around the world. This means we have people available 24 hours a day. The fact that HQ is based in Australia is more so a corporate/admin logistic, more than anything else.

5. What are some of the challenges are you facing with your unique business model?

We are the first and only broker who is also a registered charity. As far as ASIC and other regulators are concerned, we are a square peg in a round hole. We need to keep our operating costs very low as a charity. Licensing, marketing + other costs must be taken care off first before any funds diverted to the charitable trust.

6. How do you plan to deliver your promise of full transparency?

Periodic reporting of all trading volumes and internal company metrics.