Can someone tell me the pros and cons of buying through each site. Also what are the clearance times like on buying or selling?
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Can someone tell me the pros and cons of buying through each site. Also what are the clearance times like on buying or selling?
I'm not sure if this is what you mean by clearance times: Orders are settled two business days after the trade, that is when the proceeds from a sale are availale for withdrawal from your account. But you can use the funds from a sale immediately for a new buy order, you don't need to wait for settlement. ASB Securities shows your settled and unsettled balances seperately, but Sharesies doesn't dintinguish between them.
These are a few pros and cons that I can think of:
ASB Securities: Pros:
- No subscription charges, pay only when you trade.
- Free access to market depth information for 3 months after making a trade.
- Can participate fully in market pre-open and pre-close sessions.
- Shares are held on an external registry (Computershare or Link), so you can buy them via ASB and then sell them via another broker. You can also access the registry directly to cast shareholder votes, take part in company dividend reinvestment plans, rights issues, share purchase plans, etc.
- Access to ASX and NZX.
ASB Securities: Cons:
- Higher brokerage: $15 for trades up to $1000, $30 up to $10000, 0.3% above that.
- The full minimum brokerage is charged even on partialy-filled orders.
- Minimum holding and minimum parcel size rules apply to some shares.
Sharesies: Pros:
- Lower brokerage: 0.5% for trades up to $3000 then 0.1% above that. (No brokerage on ETFs.)
- No minimum brokerage, so no penalty for cancelling a partially-filled order.
- No minumum holding or parcel size; can trade fractional shares. E.g. if you entered a buy order for $10 and the trade went through at $4.50 per share, then you would receive 2.1111 shares, with brokerage fees of $0.05.
Sharesies: Cons:
- Subscription charges, $30/year (but less if your portfolio is below $3000.)
- Access to market depth and real-time prices is an optional extra costing $10/month.
- Can't enter new orders during pre-open or pre-close sessions (but limit orders entered during the main trading session remain active and may be filled during pre-close and pre-open sessions.)
- Shares are held by custodian, so you can only sell them via Sharesies, can't cast a shareholder vote, can't take part in company dividend reinvestment plans. Not sure what happens with rights issues. Share purchase plan participation is possible though (e.g. the current Auckland Airport SPP is available to eligible Sharesies investors.)
- No access to ASX. (Yet.)
Great list there. Just to add a pro versus a con you mentioned. With sharesies you can now transfer in and out of CSN. To transfer in there is no cost. To transfer out there is a $5 fee.
I think sharesies also offer rights issues ie Kathmandu.
Sharesies are looking into how they are going to allow voting. But if you are really desperate, you can always transfer your shares out of sharesies to CSN but at a cost of $5.
Thank you for your in depth reply Turnip. Appreciated
I haven't seen that feature yet, maybe still in testing? $5 seems like a good price though, Sharesies brokerage plus a $5 transfer fee would work out less than ASB brokerage for any size parcel.
I remembered another possible con for Sharesies is to do with their price discovery algorithm.
Both ASB Securities and Sharesies use price discovery algorithms, but the Sharesies algorithm seems to be more restrictive in that it won't let you trade very far from the ticker price.
This is mainly a problem for infrequently-traded shares. For example you can see it with Foley Wines (FWL) currently: The ticker is at $1.61, there is a large parcel on offer at $1.65, and a whole bunch of small bidders queued up at $1.64.
Those small bidders are probably Sharesies investors, probably happy to pay $1.65, but my guess is that the Sharesies price discovery algorithm is currently restricting their bids to within 2% of the ticker price. Someone buying via ASB securities could bid $1.65 and their trade would go through immediately, but the Sharesies investors will likely have to wait for the seller to lower their offer, or for another buyer to pay $1.65 and update the ticker.
Sharesies now offers limit orders so if you want to buy at market or at 1.65 you can. You just cannot put in orders pre open.
The tranfer in and out of CSN is a new feature, I have already completed such a transaction and it is really easy to do. Once they have your encrypted FIN and your CSN number all you do is state what shares and the amount and 2 days later its transaction finito.
Well your example was not a good one then. If the bid is 1.60 and the offer is 1.65 then a buy at 1.65 will definitely go through. Have had plenty go through this morning. The example you use is probably sharesies buyers who have put in a market order and then yes the algo will sit on the bid. But with their limit orders you can set your limit at 1.65 and it will go through...
If the bid and last sale was 1.60 and the offer was 2.60 and you went to buy at 2.60 I can understand why that would not go through...
The small FWL bids that were queued up at $1.64 while the ticker was at $1.61 only went through some time after a larger order traded at $1.65 and updated the ticker. Now that the ticker is at $1.65 and there is still an offer at $1.65 the Sharesies orders will go through immediately.
Another current example is IKE: ticker at $0.68, small bids queued up at $0.69, and an offer at $0.70. But $0.70 is more than 2% higher than $0.68 and so the Sharesies orders won't be able to trade until some non-Sharesies order goes through and updates the ticker, or a seller makes a lower offer.
The limit on how far from the ticker Sharesies orders can trade is not always 2%, it varies from share to share and can change depending on market conditions, but from what I have seen the limit is usually 3% or less.
My apologies Turnip, I see what you mean. I have put an order in to buy some IKE at 70 cents and they are not listening to my wishes. I have sent them a lengthy response stating what I think are flaws in their order execution and that it will annoy more seasoned investors no end. I hope they will resolve this issue in due course. Will let you know if they reply and what they say.