Looking for an online broker

fleetz

29th-April-2005, 03:51 PM

My first posting after monitor the board for a while. Need your advise on how best to take control of some shares I have invested in our SMSF.

Firstly the reason for the post is I am pissed off with my stock broker here in Adelaide. Over the the last 18 months he has managed to turn $50K into around $22K! With classic stock selection ION, PPX, ABI to name but a few! He also recommended PTD outside of Super which has cost me around $19K. Basically I want shot of them and take control/ownership. What do you think is the best and most convienient on line share trader?

I am looking at Comsec any comments on them? Anyother suggestions. I will proably not want to trade on a daily basis hopefully ride some of the stocks that the brokers have bought back to break even then cash out. I don't want to give them another cent for basically doing nothing.

They don't contact me I am alway the one to ring them. I contacted him on a few occassions recently and suggested that we do some dollar cost averaging on some stocks that he selected that went seriously south and he said we will wait. Had we done what I suggested we would be around $10K better position than we in today.

I wish these broker were more accountable for there actions. What really pisses me off is when I ring him to find out what has happen to yet another of his selections all he comes up with is "well I am holding some more of these stocks" giving you there is someone worse off than yourself! That really burns my butt!! This broker works for one of the largest established broking firms here in Adelaide.

Anyway sorry to vent my sleen. I look forward to any suggestions as to where to from here.

Regards,

Fleetz

krisbarry

29th-April-2005, 04:05 PM

Go it alone! Do your own research and invest your own money. At the end of the day its your money! I keep hearing these horror stories over and over!

Sounds like many stock brokers be they professional or not would have a clue about investing.

Joe Blow

29th-April-2005, 04:38 PM

Smurf1976

29th-April-2005, 05:18 PM

I suggest you use Etrade and possibly do so through DataTech depending on your trading style.

www.etrade.com.au
www.datatech.net.au

Etrade has always been quite adequate for my needs and no complaints about them from me. Since they are a non-advisory (discount) broker there is no issue with who wants to do what - they'll just execute the orders you place and nothing more.

DataTech is a "human" broker that operate through your Etrade account. The cost is higher, $60.50 per trade, but you can specify basically whatever you want in the order. For example, you might want to wait until 30 minutes after the market opens before trading a stock or you might want to attach a volume condition to stop loss orders.

If you know how to use these services then they can enhance your profits. For example, specifying a volume limit on stop loss orders would enable you to ignore brief dips involving only a few shares. Take a look at some of the dips that occurred during the big rise in CTX (Caltex) and you'll see how this could have been useful. That said, it isn't something that suits all situations. You can also tell DataTech to, for example, wait and see it there is a pullback / rally after a start gain / stop loss order has triggered in order to get a slightly better price. Whether any of this is useful or not depends on what and how you trade.

Through DataTech you can also organise to do short selling (selected stocks only) and other more complex trades. You can also operate CFD and other accounts through them too. And if there's a problem then you just call them, speak to a real person (not a computer) and they sort it out for you. Never had any real problems with them (they made a mistake once but fixed it up the next day at no cost to me).

Of course you are paying for this service through their charges on every trade you make (the $60.50 includes both Datatech's and Etrade's charges) BUT if you want to place an order with Etrade yourself then you can and of course you don't pay DataTech's fee for those orders (so, $32.95 reducing to around $27-ish depending on how many trades you do per month).

So, Etrade is fine for normal trading and is probably all you need especially if trading infrequently. If you like the idea of having someone to sort out any problems and want to do some more complicated trades, short selling or whatever then it might be worth paying DataTech for their services too.

Another option would be to forget shares altogether and open an account with someone like MAN Financial or IG Markets and trade CFD's. You can trade most of the major shares through CFD's so you can generally do the exact same trades you would with directly owning shares. You can also trade movements in share indexes, some commodities and so on this way too. Be VERY careful not to over-levereage though since they won't stop you from blowing the lot (they execute the trades only and do not provide advice) and you can get some pretty high leverage if you want to by trading this way (If that comment doesn't make sense then for your own safety I very strongly suggest sticking to a conventional stockbroker).

www.igmarkets.com.au
www.manfinancial.com.au

Keep well away from National Online Trading from what I've been told. No personal experience with them but heard of quite a few problems.

Hpoe that helps. :) :2twocents

wayneL

29th-April-2005, 06:12 PM