Online Finance Academy is a global collective of the world’s finest, and most experienced traders and instructors. We offer an elite level of training to corporate and retail clients followed by recruitment and mentoring.

Every one of our trader-teachers have had successful trading careers. Each has about a quarter century of experience on pit-traded and electronic markets. They have traded every major financial product in every style of trading for banks, proprietary trading firms and independently. Their range of experience also extends into risk management and compliance, brokerage, algorithm development and trading psychology. In other words, they are a deep well of market wisdom and know exactly you need to succeed as a trader.

Above all, they are a team of knowledgeable instructors whose talent for teaching is only matched by their generosity as mentors.

Read the Testimonials

HOW THE ACADEMY CAME TOGETHER…

We had seen far too many novice traders throwing their hard-earned money at get rich quick schemes and basic courses which taught next to nothing. This affected us all on some level. The fact is, trading is a difficult business; the majority of new traders will fail. People attracted to conspicuous wealth and easy formulas to success are least likely to succeed. However, if you demonstrate true commitment, we are ready to teach you everything we know.

MARK SHLAES

Mark Shlaes is a like a walking history book at the Chicago Board of Trade, with over 40 years of trading, teaching and management experience. As a member of the CBOT for over 29 years, he has successfully traded in 9 trading pits as an independent trader and worked as a floor broker on behalf of institutional clients. He served as CBOT Director for 3 years, as Second Vice-Chairman for 1 year, and served on 20+ exchange committees, including the Executive Committee. Mark was one of the very first people to use spread trading in the derivatives market and one of the first to use computers for trading on the exchange floor. He spent 10 years a senior manager with Goldenberg, Hehmeyer and successor companies where he established a successful New York proprietary trading group office. His duties included strategic planning, trader recruitment, initial and ongoing training/mentoring. He developed global curriculum for new traders, psychologically-based interview processes, risk procedures, and oversight for offices in London, New York and Chicago. He has personally mentored over 200 traders and 10 trading managers. Mark’s role at Online Finance Academy is as a lead instructor, mentor and curriculum developer. Mark brings to OFA a tremendous experience trading all major derivative products as well as great understanding of the psychological component of trading. His teaching focus is on spread trading, and specifically the Treasury markets. Based in Chicago, Mark also oversees our trader recruitment committee and assists traders in developing their careers with partner trading firms.

SHAUN DOWNEY

Shaun Downey is a veteran of the markets and a globally recognized name in the world of Technical Analysis. He was winner of the Technical Analysis book of the year 2014, Mapping Your Voyage of Discovery, which was a follow-up to the ground-breaking, New Methods in Technical Analysis, published in 2006. He began his career in 1979 at age 16 with Rudolf Wolff Commodity brokers. Initially, he specialized in softs and grains, then moved into the oil market and eventually became head of FX hedging and market making. He has run various private funds and traded all asset classes including stocks on a hedging, treasury, speculative and fund basis. Shaun has been writing a variety of technical analysis commentaries for the professional and retail market since 1991. He continues to advise, mentor and coach for his corporate client base through his long association with CQG. At CQG he had the unique opportunity to learn, create, and test all things technical. His website www.trading-time.com provides more insight into his methods. While being an expert in traditional Technical Analysis he offers unique insight into how these indicators can be applied. He has created a suite of his own Technical Tools that are available on a variety of software platforms. Shaun’s role at OFA is as instructor and mentor in technical analysis and the development of technical trading tools and automated trading strategies.

LARRY GAZETTE

Larry Gazette has been actively trading and mentoring traders in the financial markets for 32 years. In his early career Larry grew his option market making trading group presence from 2 to over twenty traders, on 8 global exchanges during the open outcry era of the financial markets. At the onset of the electronic exchange revolution in the mid 1990’s, Larry completely reinvented his business model to address the challenges and opportunities of instantaneous price discovery at the epoch of modern markets. He recognized early that successful trading firms will morph into entities much closer to IT firms. This recognition set Larry on a 20 year path of extensive trade system design, development and multi asset class system implementations. As a lifelong independent trader, Larry shares a deep appreciation for all things entrepreneurial. He co-founded MarketSound Corp, a trade solutions software company, during the heydays of the internet boom. Since 2014 he has been a resource consultant for Guidepoint in the financial services space. Larry also served as a senior trader/trading system architect for Rumson Capital, a $600 million convertible bond hedge fund, in the mid 2000’s. Currently based in Charleston South Carolina, Larry continues his trading system and portfolio construction design and implementations as a financial advisor to his growing book of clients. Larry teaches the Personal Portfolio Management course.

NAM NGUYEN, PH.D.

Nam Nguyen’s career in quantitative analysis began in graduate school at Laval University in the mid-1990s where he applied his mathematical and computational skills to solve problems in chemistry and physics. After graduate school, Nam worked for 5 years as a researcher in life science where he specialized in high performance computing and data analysis. Nam has been developing quantitative trading and hedging systems since the 1990s, first for himself, then for investment clubs. Nam has developed a variety of strategies and trading models for institutional clients, including: derivatives pricing models, options pricing models for hedging and valuing commodity portfolios, reverse dispersion volatility strategies, and statistical arbitrage strategies. His research interests include volatility and correlation, and specifically, how correlations break down in stretched environments. He has published many academic papers in the areas of control, optimization theory, hedging, pricing models, and numerical simulation techniques. In 2007, Nam began consulting for major financial institutions, including PWC and Ernst & Young Financial Advisory, where he specialized in quantitative analysis and risk management. Since 2009, he has sat on the Board of the Toronto chapter of the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association where his mandate includes educating and promoting sound risk management practices in financial institutions. Nam has mentored and trained many junior quantitative analysts. He regularly organizes case competitions and conferences in the finance, banking and insurance sector. Nam’s role at OFA is as a consultant, and instructor in trading/hedging system design and risk management.

HELEN TASKER

Helen Tasker has 20 years of experience trading the financial markets. At age 17 she chose to leave college when given an opportunity to work for a small proprietary firm on the LIFFE floor. Within 2 years she had progressed from ‘runner’ to sole broker dealing with external clients, designated market makers and internal traders. Renowned for her accuracy and efficiency, Helen was approached by a Short-Term Interest Rate group and soon became a successful proprietary trader and STIR market maker for both LIFFE and the CME. After having children Helen ran the graduate training programme at a Canary Wharf based trading firm, teaching, mentoring and managing risk for both new and existing traders. She later worked in derivative sales on the global sales desk of a large Scandinavian Bank. Helen has traded futures and options on both an intraday and longer-term timeframe. She has traded outright, spread and curve trades across most asset classes and exchanges. Her main interests lie in trading psychology, behavioural finance and technical analysis. Based in the London area, Helen’s role within OFA is as a consultant, mentor and teacher in risk management and trading psychology. She is a true role model for women seeking a career in the financial markets.

BRIAN WALSH

Brian began his career on the floor of the CBOT in 1997. He moved off the floor shortly after to trade 30 year bonds and bunds on Eurex as a proprietary trader for Goldenberg, Hehmeyer, one of the biggest FCMs in Chicago. After moving to London in 2002, he became an independent trader until 2008. From 2008 to 2012 he worked for Kingstree trading as both a market analyst, and as a proprietary trader, specializing in global macro. At Kingstree, he also taught an intro to trading class for new incoming traders. He has been involved in markets during some of the biggest macro events over the past 20 years, including 9/11, the 2008 crisis, and the 2012 European crisis where numerous market, trading, and economic lessons were learned. He is an avid researcher and is always trying to solve the puzzle of markets and the macroeconomic picture. Since 2012, Brian has been an independent macro trader and a consultant for people and businesses looking for insight into the global macro and geopolitical picture. He currently resides in San Francisco.

ADAM JAGIELLOWICZ

Adam Jagiellowicz began trading stocks and options in 1982 at the age of 13. In his 20s, he continued to trade his own accounts while pursuing both entrepreneurial and academic interests. He made the leap to trading professionally in 2000 where he began swing trading precious metals futures. In 2002 he joined Refco Trading Services in Montreal as a proprietary trader where his trading style and focus was scalping the US 30 year bond and the Eurostoxx index futures. Following the closure of Refco in 2005, he worked briefly with MF Global as a futures and forex broker until a desire for a career change lead him back to one of his first passions in life, teaching and academics. In 2011, seeing that there were few firms that taught anything but the most basic trading knowledge, he realized that the world needed a trading school which offered an elite level of training. He began teaching on an individual basis and then co-founded The Institute of Trading and Finance (IOTAF) in Montreal in 2014. He wrote the school’s extensive training materials, taught technical analysis, mentored students and managed daily operations. In the autumn of 2016, he left IOTAF to assemble an all-star cast of exceptional traders from around the globe to be known as Online Finance Academy (OFA). Adam’s assumes a managerial / business development role at Online Finance Academy and continues to teach students through OFA’s trader mentoring platform known as ‘News vs Noise’.

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