Ok show me all the banks that let you trade shares on the ASX.
Now show me every other ASX broker, and the micro investors too.
Alright, now let's compare all of them together and see which one is the best value for money.
St George direct shares provides a tiered fee starting from $19.95 for every 1st trade
of the month, up to $29.95 for trades up to $28,000 and then 0.11% of the trade value
beyond that.
It gives you access to international shares and also has a nifty IPO centre which allows
you to invest in IPOs.
The screener also gives you basic analysis tools.
ANZ Share Investing has a similar tiered fee structure to St George with different rates
for the first order vs every subsequent order in a calendar month.
They charge $19.95 for trades up to $5000, increasing to $24.95 for $10000 trades, $29.95
for trades up to $28000 and 0.11% of the trade value beyond that.
ANZ also gives access to international shares, IPOs and Chi-X.
One difference with ANZ is that they give Qantas Frequent Flyer points for the brokerage
that you spend so that might differentiate the platform from others if you're into collecting
those points.
NABTrade is the cheapest of the bank brokers on average and its fees start from $14.95
for trades up to $5000, this goes up to $19.95 for trades up to $20000, and 0.11% for trades
over $20000.
It has plenty of features like analysis, charting options and margin lending, and is probably
the closest rival to Commsec.
NABtrade is cheaper than Commsec from $1000 trades and upwards, but Commsec is better
value for money for small trades up to $1000.
Speaking of Commsec, this is the most popular and well known platform in Australia and with
good reason.
It's fees start from $10 for small trades under $1000 and increases to $19.95 up to
$10000, $29.95 up to $25,000 and 0.12% of the trade size beyond that.
But the main reason for its popularity is its reviews, recommendations, and analysis
tools to help you make the right choices. and that provides value for the higher fees
that they charge.
In fact, I get a lot of my information in the videos I make from their stock analysis
tools.
Westpac Share Trading fees are much simpler, but their website doesn't make this clear.
You pay the higher of $19.95 or 0.11% on all trades regardless of trade size.
Westpac also integrates a large number of global stock markets but be careful to remain
active at least once a year or you'll be charged $63.50 inactivity fees for not making any
trades on your account.
Macquarie Online Trading has a similar fee structure, though slightly higher than Westpac's.
You pay the higher of $19.95 or 0.12% per trade.
The service does not have international shares and is limited to ASX stock only.
Also, the free silver package is delayed by 20 mins and you need to click to refresh stock
prices, if you want dynamic live data, be ready to pay at least $10 a month for the
gold and platinum services.
The Bank of Melbourne Directshares is identical to the St George platform, which you can see
here on their website which actually links to a St George platform video.
This actually makes sense since they are part of the same banking group.
The trick to keeping your brokerage down is to trade less than $5000 on the first trade
of the month, then the subsequent trades will remain at $19.95 up to $18,000.
HSBC Online Share Trading also has a simple fee structure.
$19.95 per trade up to $20000, and 0.11% of the trade value after that.
This is one of the lowest bank brokerage fees in the market if your trades range from $10000
to $20000.
Their market map tool is great for understanding how sectors are performing, but the platform
only covers the ASX.
The free silver package is delayed by 20 mins and a gold package is offered for $10 a month.
Suncorp Share Trade is the most expensive bank stock broker at $21.95 for trades up
to $10000, $29.95 up to $20000 and 0.12% for trades beyond that.
But if you have a mortgage with them, then you get a discount on the brokerage and it
becomes the cheapest of the bank brokers.
You get live prices for free and the platform also offers international share trading but
it is extremely expensive and theres no mortgage discount on this.
The Bank of Queensland is able to match Suncorp Share Trade Brokerage fees making it the cheapest
Bank Broker beating out Suncorps broker fees even with the discount for their mortgage
holders.
But once your trade is more than $17000 in value, the fee is the same as Westpac.
However you need to be aware that BOQs share trading platform is essentially CMC Markets
platform with a bank cover over the top.
Now let's move onto the non-bank brokers and you'll notice significant brokerage discounts
from what the banks charge, starting with Selfwealth.
Selfwealth is easily the cheapest CHESS broker available to Australians.
Their fee is $9.50 per trade.
That's it.
No tiers of charges, no calendar month, no percentage of trade.
Buying $2000 of shares?
$9.50 brokerage fees.
Buying a million dollars of shares?
$9.50 brokerage fees.
Selfwealth also has access to the US market which also charges $9.50 in US dollars which
equates to about $13 Australian, far cheaper than what other banks are offering.
Stock analysis is provided by refinitive which is surprisingly good and you can upgrade for
just $9 a month for even more research and recommendations.
But they also have something that none of the bank brokers do, a referral program, which
gets you 5 free trades for each person you invite and for yourself.
Mines in the description below if you want to use that.
CMC Markets works a little bit different, in that they reward its users for trading
more.
The first 10 trades every month has a fee of $11 or 0.1% whichever is higher.
But after that, it becomes $9.90 per trade or 0.075% per trade.
You also get extra features like live data and research reports after you hit the higher
tiers.
Be aware that that there is a $15 monthly inactivity fee which starts when there are
no trades on the account for a continuous 12 months.
Superhero is the newest broker to appear and can boast $5 trading fees.
But there are caveats to this.
First, the order type available for a free account is Market order only.
You cant choose a limit order unless you upgrade your account for $9 a month charged annually.
Also, Superhero keeps its fees low by using a custodian HIN number.
What this means is that one HIN number is used by Superhero for all shares and it manages
its own registry about who owns what shares.
In the event that Superhero goes bankrupt, it may be difficult to get ownership of your
shares, as it wont be as clear as buying under your own HIN number.
On the other hand, Superhero does allow free PAYID into the transaction account, which
is extremely handy, as opposed to $1 fee for a BPAY transfer.
IG Group is another custodian broker similar to Superhero, which allows it to keep its
fees as low as $8 per trade as they don't need to pay the ASX fees when they transfer
shares from one HIN to another.
You can also get access to $5 per trade if you made more than 3 trades in the previous
month.
IG also has access to the US market with no fees per trade, but charges an inactivity
fee as well of $50 per quarter.
Having been around for 45 years, it does a have a good reputation and will be around
for a long time as well.
Interactive Brokers have been around even longer and is another custodian broker.
Before we go into fees, let's make it clear that this platform is not for beginners, it
is extremely complex to use and is more geared towards advanced day traders who trade huge
amounts of money.
Now that that's out of the way, the fees start from $5 or 0.08% of the trade value, whichever
is higher.
You can also reduce the broker fees even more by trading millions of dollars but if you're
trading millions of dollars, broker fees is the last thing on your mind.
Theres also inactivity fees of $10 per month.
Bell Direct operates under the CHESS registry for each user and is much simpler to use with
fees starting from $15 per trade under $10000, $25 per trade up to $25000 or 0.1% of the
trade value beyond that for the first 10 trades per month, and reducing to $13 for the 11th
to the 30th trade, or $10 per trade beyond that.
They also give free research papers from their advisory team but you are limited to ASX stocks
only.
Phillip Capital is a broker that specialises in more than 20 international stock exchanges.
But for the ASX they are on the more expensive side, with fees starting from $19.80 or 0.12%
per trade.
They do cover a lot of international exchanges that's not found anywhere else so the convenience
of keeping it all in one place is the only reason to go with them.
Saxo Markets is an interesting broker because it allows you to choose between a custodian
broker similar to Superhero and IG for trade fees of $6.99 per trade, or a CHESS registered
trade for $14.90 per trade.
It also has two trading applications available depending on your experience, a Web based
platform for retail investors or a desktop application for day traders.
It also covers a range of international stocks though the fees are significantly higher.
Think Markets is a hidden gem of a broker with a flat fee brokerage of only $8, beating
out even Selfwealth while registering share ownership via your own individual HIN number.
There are no subscription fees, no inactivity fees and no minimum trade fees.
So why has it flown under the radar all this time?
I think that being relatively new, it isn't being marketed as agressively and a lack of
a referral program has kept the broker undeservedly obscure.
Netwealth is a wealth management company that also offers their platform to trade the ASX
and international shares.
Their ASX brokerage fees start from $17.99 per trade up to $5000, $19.95 per trade up
to $10000, $26.99 per trade up to $25000 and 0.11% of the trade value beyond that.
You can also purchase their premium research upgrade for $29 a month.
But if all of this is too hard or you're not ready to step into the world of ASX investing
yet, then there are also micro-investing options such as Commsec Pocket, Raiz Invest and Spaceship
Voyager which helps you get a taste of investing small amounts and watching your money grow
at much lower risk by investing in ETFs and carefully selected portfolios.
Raiz invest charges $2.5 per month, Commsec pocket charges $2 per trade, and Spaceship
is free for balances under $5000.
So there you have it, every broker available to Australians to start their investment portfolios.
I'd would personally rank the options as the following:
Number 3: Superhero, as the cheapest ASX broker.
Number 2: Commsec, as the best financial analysis platform, even if that comes at a price.
Number 1: Selfwealth, as the best combination of both price and analysis.
Of course, you are also able to use a combination of brokers to trade and analyse as you're
allowed to have multiple HIN numbers.
You can also use a free subscription to Sharesight, the leading share portfolio tracker, to track
and manage your ASX stocks.
Sharesight tracks stock prices, trades, dividends, performance and tax across multiple broker
platform that you use and is an easy way to keep an eye on your portfolio without manual
entry into a spreadsheet. and if you sign up with the link below, you'll save 4 months
off any annual subscription.
Or you can just stick with the free plan forever.
So thanks for watching, remember to like and subscribe for more videos like this, and I'll
see you in the next video.