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Top 10 australian stock broking related links & websites

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Top  Australian stock broking websites and information links  on the internet

 

Bell Direct (www.belldirect.com.au)

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Directors’ Transactions
Directors’ Transactions tells you who’s buying, who’s selling and who owns what amongst Australia’s company directors.
» www.directorstransactions.com.au

CMC Markets Stockbroking (www.cmcmarketsstockbroking.com.au)

Educated Investor Bookshop
A specialist bookshop located in Melbourne offering same day postage Australia wide and a 10% discount for subscribers to The Intelligent Investor.
» www.educatedinvestor.com.au

Australian Shareholders’ Association
Established as a not-for-profit organisation in 1960 the Australian Shareholders’ Association protects and advances the interests of investors.
» www.asa.asn.au

Grant’s Interest Rate Observer
This fortnightly newsletter is US-centric, highbrow and bears little relevance to the Australian market, but we like his style.
» www.grantspub.com

Income Investor
This site offers information on both upcoming and historical ex-dividend dates, including dividend amounts and franking.
» www.incomeinvestor.com.au

E*Trade (www.etrade.com.au)

New2Shares.com.au
Confused by investing but want to learn more? New2Shares offers five education modules covering everything from telling you why you should invest to reading annual reports and choosing a broker.
» www.new2shares.com.au

Outstanding Investor Digest
It’s expensive and it’s infrequent but the interviews in this US publication are more eagerly anticipated than anything coming through The Intelligent Investor’s mailbox
» www.oid.com

Platinum Asset Management
Australian based fund manager Platinum provide some refreshing words of wisdom in their quarterly reports.
» www.platinum.com.au

The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX)
The ASX website includes market and company news, share prices, ASX education centre, ASX/Dymocks Book Shop, information on derivatives and a directory of stock brokers. For those who would love to attend the lunchtime lectures, a timetable is now available online.
» www.asx.com.au

D.J. Carmichael (www.djcarmichael.com.au)

 

The superinvestors of Graham and Doddsville
This is a highly recommended extract from a lecture given at Columbia University in 1984 by Warren Buffett.
» www.tilsonfunds.com/superinvestors.php3

 

Tilson Funds
It could almost be described as the value investor’s homepage (second only to The Intelligent Investor of course), this website has it all and is a fantastic starting point.
» www.tilsonfunds.com

 

 

Warren Buffett
The Intelligent Investor’s dedicated site to the one of the world’s most successful investors, Warren Buffett.
» www.warrenbuffett.com.au

 

Overseas Stockbroker Website links

Berkshire Hathaway
This site contains Warren Buffett letters to shareholders for every issue since 1977. Essential reading for all value investors.
» www.berkshirehathaway.com

Third Avenue Funds
Martin J. Whitman (Marty Whitman) is a legendary investor and author of a book titled Value Investing: A Balanced Approach. He’s also a regular to the pages of Outstanding Investor Digest (www.oid.com). Whitman founded Third Avenue Management in 1974 and its website contains many gems. Most are to be found in the ‘Shareholder Letters’ section.
» www.thirdavenuefunds.com

 

The Motley Fool

If you know what you’re after then this ‘all things finance related’ website probably has it. The regular email bulletins are informative, but with a UK slant.

» www.fool.co.uk

Australian Stockbroker Links

» ABN AMRO Morgans (www.abnamromorgans.com.au)

» Wilson HTM Investment Group (www.wilsonhtm.com.au)

» HSBC Stockbroking (www.broking.hsbc.com.au)
» Intersuisse (www.intersuisse.com.au)

» Andrew West (www.andrewwest.com.au)
» Austock (www.austock.com.au)
» Baker Young (www.bakeryoung.com.au)
» BBY (www.bby.com.au)
» Burrell Stockbroking (www.burrell.com.au)
» Commonwealth Securities Ltd (www.commsec.com.au)
» Delta Securities (www.deltasecurities.com.au)
» Direct Shares (www.directshares.com.au)
» Gillion Securities (www.gillon.com.au)
» Joseph Palmer & Sons (www.jpalmer.com.au)
» Maquarie DirecTrade (www.macquarie.com.au)
» Morrison Securities (www.morrisonsecurities.com)
» Netwealth (www.netwealth.com.au)
» Sanford Securities (www.sanford.com.au) 
» Smith Barney Citigroup (www.smithbarney.com.au)
» Taylor Collison (www.taylorcollison.com.au)

Investing in mutual funds

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Mutual funds are an investment fund that pools the financial resources of a variety of investors and buys a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds. At inception, the board of directors for the fund set the goals and strategies for the fund. Then, a fund manager is hired to ensure that their directives along with the fund manager’s expertise work in sync for the best returns possible for the fund. Investors have the ability to enter the fund for relatively low up-front investments and have the flexibility to add additional financial resources or sell shares as they desire.

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Mutual Funds: What Are They?

The fund manager allows for investors to relax and let a highly qualified expert do the buying and selling as needed for the fund without having to worry about individual stock and bond purchases and sales.

The mutual fund manager is responsible for the buying and selling of bonds and other securities and reports to the board of directors of the fund. Mutual funds area available both as an “Actively Managed” and “Passively Managed” fund. A passively managed fun is one where the fund manager sets the investment criteria with direction from the board and then buys and sells investments to match the strategy. A passively managed mutual fund is the most reasonable type of fund for an investor to own as the costs associated are less than those of an actively managed fund.

In an actively managed mutual fund, the fund manager is much more intricately involved in the research of companies, markets, industries, and the economy to more fully manage the fund on a day-by-day, and hour-by-hour basis. Actively managed funds have highly educated and experienced fund managers that focus their energies on analysis and keep up-to-date with industry and economic news. While the annual expenses of an actively managed fund may be significantly higher than a passively managed fund, often times, greater returns are seen.

Advantages of Investing In Mutual Funds

1. Experienced fund manager trades stocks and bonds as market, industry and economy requires.

2. Diversified portfolio as many mutual funds contain hundreds of different stocks and bonds.

3. Investors don’t have to invest in individual securities which can be cost prohibitive for some investors.

4. Low up-front minimum investment requirements for mutual funds can be as low as $500.

5. Shares can be sold for cash.

Investors can sell all or part of their shares in mutual funds at the Net Asset Value (NAV) rate. This is the actual mutual fund price that is set at the end of each trading day and is the buy/sell price until the following NAV rate is set.

There are tens of thousands of mutual funds for investors to choose from; in fact, there are actually more mutual funds in the United States than there are individual stocks or securities. Well-balanced mutual funds tend to own a balance of bonds and stocks, often times with stocks slightly outweighing the bonds. Analysts agree that mutual funds are one of the best ways to invest money with minimal risk while enjoying moderate and good returns. For a truly balanced portfolio, experts agree that investments in mutual funds provide the right balance of risk and reward.

About Us: When you are searching for information about retail investments and funding choices, you will find that there are a few choices that can really help to improve your portfolio performance. When you have questions about your investments, you might consider turning to Trustnet, Hong Kong’s premier site for information about fund investment.

Guest Post : Visit their website at www.trustnet.hk for more information.

Gold– Past and future of Investing in gold for profit

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Gold as an investment

Gold is the most popular form of investment of all precious metals. It is the preferred investment medium used as a hedge against political, economic or man-made currency crises which include declines in investment markets, inflation, escalating national debt, currency failure, social unrest and war. Like other markets, the gold market is subject to speculation especially because of futures derivatives and contracts.

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Various historical factors and current events suggest that gold is more akin to a currency rather than a commodity and analysts says the bullion gold investment might be profitable in the short term due to the global economic outlook

Gold through the ages

Until recently, gold has traditionally been used as money, and has also been the relative standard for currency comparisons relative to countries or economic regions. Gold standards were implemented by many European countries in the latter half of the 19th century. During the financial crises in the wake of World War I these were temporarily held in abeyance. The Bretton Woods system post World War II pegged gold to the United States $ at the rate of US$35 per troy ounce. This practice continued till 1971 when the United State suspended unilaterally direct convertibility of the $ to gold and transitioned to a flat currency system. The Swiss Franc was the last currency to be divorced from gold.

Current factors that impact gold prices

Like most other commodities, bullion gold investment price is determined by supply, demand and speculation. However with gold, unlike other commodities, savings and disposal rather than consumption have a significant role to play in driving the price of gold. Much of the gold mined since inception still exists in bullion or bulk produced jewellery form, and can potentially return to the market when the price is right. The current weak global outlook has also made people invest in gold as a safe bet  which has been driving the price of gold

Considering the enormous quantity of gold above-ground in comparison with annual production, price is driven more by sentiment or demand instead of fluctuations in annual production or supply. According to World Gold Council figures, about 2,500 tonnes are mined annually, of which roughly 2,000 tonnes go into jewellery or industrial production/dentistry and only the remainder to exchange traded gold funds and retail investors.

Guest post Written by Ktkoh

IS Facebook Ipo going to set the Tech ipo trend of 2012

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Facebook has filed for its IPO and with that filing, a lot of new information about the company was revealed. Facebook is rumored to be going public this week in a deal that could value the social-networking site at an astonishing $100 billion

Facebook IPO reveals information

845 million monthly active users,

483 million daily active users,

Over 425 million monthly active users using Facebook’s mobile products.

In its filing Facebook appears to consider growth in mobile use among the key risks to the company.

You can view the filing in its entirety, as well as a letter from Mark Zuckerberg here.

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Via: Cutencomfy

People are increasingly using their smartphones (and tablets) to access the web which should Increase mobile Facebook use and  Facebook isn’t currently monetizing this use (with ads), but that is likely to change soon.

In fact with timeline facebook’s new planned FrontPage format, many users are already saying its probably going to make another MySpace of  Facebook, as not many users like the new look of Facebook the once loved. Google G+ and twitter at the same time  are getting better day by day  adding new features to their own websites

 

some of the Tech ipos from  last year

 

ZYNGA – Zynga went public in December at $10, but closed down 5 percent to $9.50.Zynga now trades at around $10.50 and remains a gaming force to be reckoned with

GROUPON – Daily deals giant Groupon went public last Nov. 4. Its stock debuted at $20 per share and hit a high of $31.14 before closing at $26.11 by the market close.

tech ipo groupon 2011 2012

LINKED IN – LINKEDIN (NYSE:LNKD)

Professional social network LinkedIn probably had the biggest IPO in terms of hype this year because it was one of the first big social media companies to go public. The ipo was prices at  $45 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, LinkedIn began trading at $83.00 per share on May 19.

 

Previous B IG TECH IPO Debut’s

 

Google: 2004
Google filed for its IPO in April 2004, with Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. and Credit Suisse First Boston LLC.The search giant raised $1.2 billion for a market value of $23 billion and Shares were offered at $85, but opened to $100.

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Microsoft: 1986
Microsoft went public in March 1986 at $21 per share, closing at $27.75 a share its first day. Microsoft is currently valued at $248.45 billion.

Amazon: 1997
Amazon went public in May 1997 with 3 million shares of common stock for $18 per share.

Amazon is currently valued at $87.38 billion

Apple: 1980 IPO
Apple went public in December 1980 at $22 per share. It was one of the  the largest IPO of its times. Apple is currently valued at $422.37 billion.

Yahoo: 1996
Yahoo’s April 1996 IPO were priced at $13, opened at $24.50, and closed at $33. The ipo created a frenzy at the market with many  investors looking to cash in on the dot-com boom. Yahoo is currently valued at $19.3 billion.