Forex trade: What if Kenyans are being fooled by randomness?

Kenya’s forex numbers raise a tough question: are the apparent winners skilled traders or simply survivors of a game stacked against them?. [Courtesy]

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong... but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11

What if the trader flexing a rented Rolls-Royce on Instagram isn’t a market wizard at all but simply the last man standing in a coin-toss tournament nobody told him he was playing? Picture this. Fill Nyayo National Stadium’s 30,000 seats with Kenyan forex traders. Hand each one a shilling coin.

 Kenyatta’s face lands up: a win. The coat of arms (Simba) side lands up: a loss.  Flip once a year, for three years, and only those who keep landing on Kenyatta stay in their seats.

Here is the uncomfortable part: this isn’t a thought experiment. It’s roughly what 2025 already did to 152,110 real accounts.

The coin, as you’re about to see, was never a fair one. What you’re about to read isn’t a story about bad traders. It’s a story about a rigged coin dressed up as bad luck, and a good statistic doing brutal, necessary work on our judgment.

This week’s signal

The Capital Market Authority’s (CMA’s) 2025 numbers, audited to the shilling: of 152,110 active client accounts, 118,012 or 77.6 per cent, recorded losses. Clients booked Sh1.25 billion in gross gains against Sh7.12 billion in gross losses, a net loss of Sh5.87 billion, up 42.1 per cent from Sh4.13 billion in 2024.

Active accounts fell 46.2 per cent year-on-year, yet losses still climbed 46.6 per cent.

 Fewer players, deeper wounds, two years running; this is a pattern, not an event.

The stadium math. Roughly 22.4 per cent of accounts were profitable in 2025; call it the true odds of landing on Kenyatta.

Fill Nyayo with 30,000 forex traders and flip once a year: after year one, about 6,720 remain. After year two, roughly 1,505.

After year three, only 337, barely more than one per cent of a full stadium, would still be standing, having “won” three years straight by pure chance. Not skill. Statistical residue.

The 29,663 who last didn’t know they were the menu and the product.

The 337 had a 1.1 per cent chance of winning; they did not beat the system. From Taleb’s perspective, they were produced by the system.

They are not masters. They are statistical certainties who will open their YouTube channels, be featured in top-tier global magazines, be podcast guests, and be featured all over the media.

This coin isn’t a fair 50/50 flip to begin with. CMA rules permit leverage up to 1:400 on major pairs, meaning Sh100 can control a Sh40,000 position, so a routine price wobble can wipe out margin before judgment even enters the picture.

 Layer on broker spreads and commissions charged on every trade, win or lose, and you get a coin weighted against the flipper from the first toss.

That’s why four brokers Exness, HF Markets, Pepperstone and FXPesa absorbed nearly 87 per cent of all client losses; Exness alone accounted for Sh2.96 billion, or 41.6 per cent of the industry’s pain, while HF Markets’ 63,138 accounts lost at a 79.69 per cent rate. The structure guarantees the outcome long before randomness gets to decide who looks like a genius.

What it means for business

This is precisely why I’ve placed my own conviction elsewhere: quantum computing, a gold mine still being surveyed by patient venture capital on three-year horizons, a discipline built on compounding technical edge, not on a coin rigged by leverage.

It is a different animal from AI’s noisy hype cycle and worlds away from retail forex’s structurally negative-sum game.

Real capital index exposure, professionally managed funds, disciplined venture bets stack probability over time. The leaders still standing in year three are rarely the ones who flipped the hardest.

What it means for policy

Regulators are referees in a game most players don’t know is tilted. The CMA’s own leverage caps, capital requirements and disclosure rules are the correction, but 1:400 leverage is still 1:400 leverage.

Annie Duke’s applies directly to policymakers: you cannot control outcomes, but you can control the odds offered to citizens before they place the wager. Publishing this data, broker by broker, isn’t shaming 118,012 people. It’s naming the structure.

What it means for people

The 22.4 per cent who won this year made the same decision as the 77.6 per cent who lost; only the coin, weighted by leverage and spread, landed differently. Judge your choices by process, not by the applause of a lucky flip. Treat speculation like fireworks, not shelter; savings and long-horizon investing come first.

Afterthought

What is the probability of you winning a rigged game in 1-100?

The invitation isn’t to fear the bet; it’s to bet wiser, knowing the odds were never a secret, and never even. “Decisions are made on the radar screen, but the future is yours.”

The author is a human-centred strategist and leadership columnist.