“[It is] easy, affordable, secure equity ownership for everyone. Quite frankly its investing, just made easy!” said Charles Savage, CEO of GT247.
According to the EasyEquities website: “Fractional ownership allows you to purchase a portion of an equity, instead of being limited to whole-equity quantities.”
This allows savers to invest any amount of money up to just over R33 million. The EasyEquities site will also calculate the amount of commission on the purchase of the shares you buy.
“This is designed to broaden access to Share ownership, including people who have never invested before in equities,” said Savage.
Shares made easy
“Fractional ownership ensures that the barrier to entry is effectively removed. Think of Naspers whose share price has appreciated from around R75 just ten years ago to around R1330 today, who would not have wanted to have even a fraction of Naspers in their share portfolio over this period? Who would still no want to own some of Naspers today?” said Savage.
According to Savage, research has shown that EasyEquities is cheaper than other platforms.
“In fact trade costs for small investors are being subsidised by GT247.com as we think it’s the right thing to do. We don’t want to exclude anyone from share ownership and unfortunately some of the cost structures associated with trading, whilst moving in the right direction, remain prohibitive and so we took the decision to step in,” said Savage.
Trade with no risk to you
EasyEquities is currently running an investment challenge till the 22 August, where players can win R5000 on a weekly basis for the highest profit percentage earned each week, or a grand prize of R25,000 by earning the most profit throughout the Investor Challenge.
Enter by opening an account and transferring R250 into it, which you will get back at the end of the challenge. EasyEquities have pledged to match this amount at the end of the challenge. However, the R250 that they give you can’t be taken out for 12 months, but it can be used to buy more shares. For more information, visit their website at: https://www.easyequities.co.za/Challenge
The costs of trading
If you’d rather trade with your own real money you can do so and EasyEquities claim that doing it through their platform is “practically fee free”. They point out that their brokerage commission of 0.25% is lower than PSG Online, Sanlam iTrade and Standard Bank (see table below). They also don’t charge a monthly admin fee. However, you do pay for telephonic purchases which cost R50 extra.
“R50 telephone charge is necessary as we want to discourage investors from trading over the phone as this requires experienced and expensive resources to manage and resource the service,” said Savage.
Tips for online traders
We asked Mabyanine Phiri, portfolio associate at forex and gold trading platform ACM Gold, for tips on online trading.
She first pointed out the risks involved. “Online trading is risky. One of the most common dangers associated with online trading is that traders allow emotions to cloud their judgement,” said Phiri.
- Markets are volatile; both inexperienced and experienced traders can lose money.
- Educated yourself about trading - traders will be amply rewarded if they take the time to educate themselves on the methods and processes of investing, investment theory and specific details of the investment products before investing.
- Make sure you are covered - no one should trade online unless they have instituted risk control measures.
- Be patient - Online trading requires a high appetite for risk, time to watch the markets and an expert knowledge of the markets and trading processes.
- Make sure you have the money - prospective traders should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for their circumstances and financial resources.
- There are demo platforms where potential traders can play online before using real money. This helps them to get a ‘feel’ of trading, without any of the risk. Some platforms include: ACM Gold, EasyEquities, and JSE Virtual Trading Game.