Easy Equities good or bad?

Investor of the week: Marnus Bezuidenhout (17)

My name is Marnus Bezuidenhout. I am 17 years old and a student at Hoërskool Hoopstad in the Free State. I started investing when I was 14 years old. Since then I have grown more and more interested in investing, and my knowledge has grown as well. I am always on the lookout for something to invest in that is easy to use and where I can be hands-on with my own investments.
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Jis, I must say, the spread between prices is starting to irritate me more and more.

Buying MTN today, price on both GoogleFinance (fairly high frequency) is ~R123.70 & I place a trade. Price paid, R126.58.

That is more than a 2% difference. And this is on a frequently traded share, not a small cap that rarely moves. Low costs, but if I factor that big difference in, not so cheap any more.
 
Unpossible said:
Jis, I must say, the spread between prices is starting to irritate me more and more.

Buying MTN today, price on both GoogleFinance (fairly high frequency) is ~R123.70 & I place a trade. Price paid, R126.58.

That is more than a 2% difference. And this is on a frequently traded share, not a small cap that rarely moves. Low costs, but if I factor that big difference in, not so cheap any more.
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Switch to ABSA and set your own bid offer prices.
 
Hamster said:
Switch to ABSA and set your own bid offer prices.
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I have been thinking about moving. ABSA, STD Bank and quite a few others also allow this.
My trades are generally about R5k each, so I need to keep a close eye on fees.

I especially like that you set your own bids in the ABSA stockbrokers TFSA with even lower fees than EE!
 
Unpossible said:
I have been thinking about moving. ABSA, STD Bank and quite a few others also allow this.
My trades are generally about R5k each, so I need to keep a close eye on fees.

I especially like that you set your own bids in the ABSA stockbrokers TFSA with even lower fees than EE!
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ABSA has a "cheap" TFSA as you mention but also a relatively cheap ETF Only account. Started switching a week ago... I'll leave my speculating and rash decisions on CandyCrush Equities :p
 
AirWolf said:
What is ABSA fee structure?
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They have tree different accounts, Share trading, ETF only & TFSA. Each have their own fees.

TFSA is even cheaper on brokerage than EE @ 0.2%.
ETFs only ...brokerage also 0.2% with a minimum of R20.
Shares, 0.4% with a minimum brokerage of R120...which for me is a bit steep. I think the "break even" trade value is something like R30k.
 
Hamster said:
ABSA has a "cheap" TFSA as you mention but also a relatively cheap ETF Only account. Started switching a week ago... I'll leave my speculating and rash decisions on CandyCrush Equities :p
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Haha, yeah, think I might have to investigate further. The other plus for the ABSA etc accounts is the offshore account that can be added as well.
 
Unpossible said:
They have tree different accounts, Share trading, ETF only & TFSA. Each have their own fees.

TFSA is even cheaper on brokerage than EE @ 0.2%.
ETFs only ...brokerage also 0.2% with a minimum of R20.
Shares, 0.4% with a minimum brokerage of R120...which for me is a bit steep. I think the "break even" trade value is something like R30k.
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So for shares EE is still the cheapest.
 
Unpossible said:
Jis, I must say, the spread between prices is starting to irritate me more and more.

Buying MTN today, price on both GoogleFinance (fairly high frequency) is ~R123.70 & I place a trade. Price paid, R126.58.

That is more than a 2% difference. And this is on a frequently traded share, not a small cap that rarely moves. Low costs, but if I factor that big difference in, not so cheap any more.
Click to expand...
Should keep an eye on the bid/offer prices they give before you place a transaction. They keep changing by the second. Seems to be live traded prices. The last traded prices means squat as offers can be rands apart in a matter of seconds. I managed to grab Sibanye at not too bad a price this morning by timing it right.
 
Unpossible said:
They have tree different accounts, Share trading, ETF only & TFSA. Each have their own fees.

TFSA is even cheaper on brokerage than EE @ 0.2%.
ETFs only ...brokerage also 0.2% with a minimum of R20.
Shares, 0.4% with a minimum brokerage of R120...which for me is a bit steep. I think the "break even" trade value is something like R30k.
Click to expand...

The brokerage on the TFSA is cheaper than EE but EE discounts/sponsors the other fees (for the first three years of operation anyway) which ABSA doesn't do or do to that extent.

Over all CandyCrush Equities is definitely the cheapest for now.
 
Unpossible said:
Jis, I must say, the spread between prices is starting to irritate me more and more.

Buying MTN today, price on both GoogleFinance (fairly high frequency) is ~R123.70 & I place a trade. Price paid, R126.58.

That is more than a 2% difference. And this is on a frequently traded share, not a small cap that rarely moves. Low costs, but if I factor that big difference in, not so cheap any more.
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The vagrancies of a market order. Are you able to place limit orders?
 
FrankieK said:
The vagrancies of a market order. Are you able to place limit orders?
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Unfortunately not no. I guess the EE platform is really for people wanting to invest, but it has to be as simple as possible. They only show you the 15min delayed last traded price. When you action the buy, they send you an email with the actual price you got etc.
 
I find that there are people in this world that will try paint a room with a hammer, then bitch and moan about the result
 
Papsak said:
I find that there are people in this world that will try paint a room with a hammer, then bitch and moan about the result
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hahaha!
My thoughts exactly.
This analogy applies to a great deal of the EE frustrations voiced to date.
It simply was not designed to be a trading platform focussed on spreads etc.
There's a multitude of portals to do that, at a cost.

If one looks at the typical EE marketing angle, it certainly does not put itself forward as a progressive 'trading' platform with layers of trade functionality. If one is investing (per se) in a share, a percentage point or 2 in terms of spread should not be a major issue.
If the purchase is speculative and the day-to-day spread is a concern, vote with your feet and go where those requirements are met.
I myself had to accept this at some point last year when there was a massive spread difference on a large counter I wanted to add more from. I could get a better spread on my FNB platform, but after costs, the difference would be negligible and I was in the process of migrating to EE anyway.
 
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