Working and affordable alternative to easy equities?

acp said:
Agreed 100% with the pathetic Satrix platform part - been with them virtually from the start and the competition has by now outpaced them by far. Probably why they need EE to administrate...
I fail to understand why anyone would want to pay inflated annual fees on the Satrix platform for 'Satrix NOW' while one can access all Satrix products via any broker (free via EE), without added annual admin fees and ridiculous debit order fees etc.

Add to that the absolute mess they made when moving my Satrix counters from Satrix (AOS Partners) to EE, and I have very little good things left to say of them. They used to be a solid offering, but if ones looks here (http://www.etfsa.co.za/ETF_factsheet.htm), there's better, lower-cost options out there. This goes for ETFSA as well, even though the fact-sheet is on their website, all these ETFs can be purchased directly from any broker platform.
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Yup still waiting for my Satrix portfolio to appear on EE side.

Utterly unresponsive and the shares just seem to be "missing" in their confusion.

Wish I just left it there and forgot about it.
 
saturnz said:
Judging from the comments on this forum, most people use EE for trading.
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I think those are all small fry starters, probably well within the CGT tax gap as well.

Personally I've only sold on EE once.
 
SauRoNZA said:
I think those are all small fry starters, probably well within the CGT tax gap as well.

Personally I've only sold on EE once.
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so if you acknowledge that people use EE for trading then I'm not sure why you mentioned the term investment to me
 
saturnz said:
I'm amazed people still trade shares when futures are so much easier if you wish to just profit from price movements.
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Please tell me more. I've bought shares via EE for investment, but would like to profit from share trading as well.
 
This is my personal view

Investment - buying into assets that provide solid dividend streams with medium to long term gain from increase in the share price

Trading - buying into assets with short term gain from increase in share price.

My portfolio is spilt so that I can trade for short term and take profits into long term for investment.

Feel free to critique and help me re shape my view.
 
SaoirseB said:
Please tell me more. I've bought shares via EE for investment, but would like to profit from share trading as well.
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I started trading on gt247 when they started, stopped and now I started again. The "capital" injection is significantly smaller than that of outright share purchases and you expose yourself to the same price movements.

You can also expose yourself to commodities, foreign markets and whatever other future contracts the broker is willing to broker.
 
saturnz said:
so if you acknowledge that people use EE for trading then I'm not sure why you mentioned the term investment to me
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Just pointing out that it's not the norm really.

But I understand now you meant it as a representation of MyBB not in general.
 
I dont get what is so bad with EE that people are looking for a "more affordable" alternative?

What am I missing here?
 
techead said:
I dont get what is so bad with EE that people are looking for a "more affordable" alternative?

What am I missing here?
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It's essentially the actual shares not being registered in your name.

The shares are safe from EE's liability as they re held in a separate company, it's a common practice as Toothless has researched.
 
Shalin_ZN said:
It's essentially the actual shares not being registered in your name.

The shares are safe from EE's liability as they re held in a separate company, it's a common practice as Toothless has researched.
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Is this so much of an issue though?

serious question
 
techead said:
Is this so much of an issue though?

serious question
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Depends. You don't own the shares, so the company can sell them or steal them. Your only recourse is then a long legal battle.
Putting your money, or large amounts of money, in them requires you to trust the company for being ethical and also not going under.
 
whatwhat said:
Depends. You don't own the shares, so the company can sell them or steal them. Your only recourse is then a long legal battle.
Putting your money, or large amounts of money, in them requires you to trust the company for being ethical and also not going under.
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if it was a small fry company, I would worry about my money being with them. But this is Purple Group, a listed company on the JSE.

I'm certain that they are not going to steal shares from anyone.

Whether they might go under though, and lose your shares in the process well that is a different story altogether.
 
Okay, so back on topic, I might have found something decent. Just need a bit more info.

ABSA Stockbrokers: Smart Account

Their Fee Schedule [PDF] says that IF you're a ABSA Private Banking client then you don't pay the minimum brokerage (R120) or monthly account fee (R66.66). When ABSA came to talk to us, I think they said their Private Banking costs around R250pm.

The monthly cost for PB is very high, but when you factor in that you don't have to pay the ABSA SB monthly fee and don't have minimum brokerage then their offering is pretty decent.

Thus they are comparable in terms of "trading/investing" costs to EE. With the "fixed" PB account fee of R250pm.

Brokerage at 0.4% + usual statutory costs.

This way you can, for eg take R5k and buy 20 different shares without the minimum brokerage killing you. You can't do this in on other platform like FNB Share Investor and would probably have to buy shares in 1 company for R5k pm.

With them the shares are registered in your name AFAIK.

Hopefully someone of ABSA PB can clear up the costs of the account and if the SB minimum brokerage and monthly fee are dropped.
 
techead said:
Is this so much of an issue though?

serious question
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That's the thing, I think this will vary significantly per person. As some have said, it's very similar to have ETF's work.

Personally I'd prefer to have my name on the share certificated, but I'm not sure if it's worth the cost yet. Trying to figure that out.

With the amount I'm going to to investing for now +-R5kpm, EE is really the only one that makes sense if I want to build my own portfolio of individual shares.

If I had more to invest though, I'd certainly go with a "proper" platform.

But the ABSA Stockbroker + Private Banking option looks promising at the moment. Just need to get more info on it.
 
techead said:
if it was a small fry company, I would worry about my money being with them. But this is Purple Group, a listed company on the JSE.

I'm certain that they are not going to steal shares from anyone.

Whether they might go under though, and lose your shares in the process well that is a different story altogether.
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I think we've established that your shares are safe in the nominee company, even if EE/GT247/PG go under. Toothless posted a few link, not sure which thread that was in though.

It's more the issue of who's name the share certificates are in. Well that and the fraud aspect.

Lol, even if they're listed it doesn't mean no one will steal or do anything dodgy. Hopefully there's controls in the way to prevent this though. They are audited as well which should help things.
 
Shalin_ZN said:
I think we've established that your shares are safe in the nominee company, even if EE/GT247/PG go under. Toothless posted a few link, not sure which thread that was in though.

It's more the issue of who's name the share certificates are in. Well that and the fraud aspect.

Lol, even if they're listed it doesn't mean no one will steal or do anything dodgy. Hopefully there's controls in the way to prevent this though. They are audited as well which should help things.
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They should be audited. It is required by law. Would be interested to know who conducts the audits and how. We all know it is impossible to audit every single transaction, as pointed out by the article I linked to. The problem is, if funds are skimmed, they will try to cover their tracks with fraudulent paper work. It will not be identified immediately.

Still, I have problems with having large amounts of investments registered solely in their name. But, that is just me. I really seen this too many times and met too many victims of investment schemes that failed.

But, for those happy with it, their pricing is really cheap.
 
Toothless said:
Would be interested to know who conducts the audits and how.
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The audit provide reasonable assurance. There are however inherent limitations as well.

From their 2014 FS:

Auditor: BDO South Africa Incorporated

Audit Report:
TO THE SHAREHOLDERS OF PURPLE GROUP LIMITED
We have audited the Group annual financial statements which comprise the consolidated statement of financial position at 31 August
2014, the consolidated statement of profit or loss, the consolidated statement of other comprehensive income, the consolidated
statement of cash flows and the consolidated statement of changes in equity for the year then ended, a summary of significant accounting
policies and other explanatory notes, as set out on pages 43 to 90.

DIRECTORS’ RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
The Company’s directors are responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these annual financial statements in accordance
with International Financial Reporting Standards, the SAICA Financial Reporting Guides as issued by the Accounting Practices
Committee and Financial Reporting Pronouncements as issued by the Financial Reporting Standards Council and in the manner
required by the Companies Act of South Africa. This responsibility includes: designing, implementing and maintaining internal control
relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of annual financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due
to fraud or error.

AUDITOR’S RESPONSIBILITY
Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these annual financial statements based on our audit. We conducted our audit in accordance
with International Standards on Auditing. Those standards require that we comply with ethical requirements and plan and perform the
audit to obtain reasonable assurance whether the annual financial statements are free from material misstatement.
An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the annual financial statements.
The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgement, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the
annual financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, the auditor considers internal controls
relevant to the entity’s preparation and fair presentation of the annual financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are
appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity’s internal controls.
An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates made
by the directors, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the annual financial statements.
We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion.

OPINION
In our opinion, the Group annual financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the consolidated financial position of the
Group as of 31 August 2014, and of its consolidated financial performance and its consolidated cash flows for the year then ended
in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, the SAICA Financial Reporting Guides as issued by the Accounting
Practices Committee and Financial Reporting Pronouncements as issued by the Financial Reporting Standards Council and its successor
and in the manner required by the Companies Act of South Africa.

OTHER REPORTS REQUIRED BY THE COMPANIES ACT
As part of our audit of the financial statements for the year ended 31 August 2014, we have read the directors’ report, the audit
committee’s report and the Company Secretary’s declaration for the purpose of identifying whether there are material inconsistencies
between these reports and the audited financial statements. These reports are the responsibility of the respective preparers. Based
on reading these reports we have not identified material inconsistencies between these reports and the audited
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