Does Commsec support day trading well?

[acreage]

How well does Comsec accommodate share day traders?, all trades are planned be well within their terms under their cheapest trade price offering.

Worried before i sign up they might want a deposit before the trade, even with full funds sitting in their mandated accounts or for any other behaviour they may have that might be hard to hurdle throughout these transactions.

 

[Sdajii]

How well does Comsec accommodate share day traders?, all trades are planned be well within their terms under their cheapest trade price offering.

Worried before i sign up they might want a deposit before the trade, even with full funds sitting in their mandated accounts or for any other behaviour they may have that might be hard to hurdle throughout these transactions.

I trade with Comsec and Westpac. With Westpac I can make a trade and not pay until settlement, and if I sell the shares before settlement there is no issue even if the cash account has too little money to cover the trade.

With Comsec, I'm pretty sure that I need sufficient funds to cover the purchase, so even if I sell the shares before settlement, they'll charge me a fee for not having the money there, even though after settlement it will be, and they obviously know it (pretty stupid in my opinion). I've never tested it with Comsec, and I'm just going on what they've told me over the phone.

Obviously I'm just a faceless internet personality, so don't take my words as solid, and give Comsec a call to confirm it for yourself. Comsec are usually very helpful and have a pretty good customer service department (as does Westpac, and you can call them too).

 

[acreage]

Thanks very much for that, the bit's and pieces that makes up a good broker service seems to be missing from the FAQs i read at each choice.

I tried to email Comsec but their page froze when sending then i tried calling but after almost 15min waiting I found something else to do.

Just got an email through so I will see what they return.

 

[So_Cynical]

How well does Comsec accommodate share day traders?, all trades are planned be well within their terms under their cheapest trade price offering.

Worried before i sign up they might want a deposit before the trade, even with full funds sitting in their mandated accounts or for any other behaviour they may have that might be hard to hurdle throughout these transactions.

I often buy with no money in my comsec settlement account...its never been an issue.

 

[acreage]

I often buy with no money in my comsec settlement account...its never been an issue.

Thankyou, do your trades if within their price cap (10K I think?) happen every time at their $19.95 price? Wondering if they will whip this away at either the buy or sell or both, if the T+3 is not perfectly observed somehow.

 

[So_Cynical]

Thankyou, do your trades if within their price cap (10K I think?) happen every time at their $19.95 price? Wondering if they will whip this away at either the buy or sell or both, if the T+3 is not perfectly observed somehow.

I always settle within T+3 (sometimes within just a few hours) all trades have gone thru at proper advertised prices....there's really no excuses for not settling on the correct day, otherwise your buying shares when you genuinely don't have the funds to cover the purchase.

 

[ROE]

With Comsec, I'm pretty sure that I need sufficient funds to cover the purchase, so even if I sell the shares before settlement, they'll charge me a fee for not having the money there, even though after settlement it will be, and they obviously know it (pretty stupid in my opinion). I've never tested it with Comsec, and I'm just going on what they've told me over the phone.

Comsec let you buy with no cash in the account as long as you have the money before settlement day, ie you got three days to put the cash in including the trading day as it settle on the 4th, T+3

I do it all the time ... most of my cash sit in a business account and I can load up stocks and I then transfer cash over the next few days...and there is no limit I bought 30K, 50K, 100K no worry

 

[IB12]

Day trading is hard on 19.95 commissions and 9% margin loan rates.
I wouldn't recommend it.

You can sign up to their more professional service, and pay less commissions, however you're still getting a raw deal with their shoddy margin loan rates.

I don't recommend them.

 

[acreage]

Ok that all sounds good, thanks again all, just completed the application, hopefully I will be up and trading with them soon.

cheers

 

[BrightGreenGlow]

Here's another point with Comsec and probably with the rest if you sell stock worth 10k and buy stock worth 9k on the same day you will receive 1k on the T+3. No money needs to be in your cash account (settlement account) on the 3rd day.

 

[Sdajii]

Comsec let you buy with no cash in the account as long as you have the money before settlement day, ie you got three days to put the cash in including the trading day as it settle on the 4th, T+3

I do it all the time ... most of my cash sit in a business account and I can load up stocks and I then transfer cash over the next few days...and there is no limit I bought 30K, 50K, 100K no worry

Yes, I do that all the time as well. As long as you put the funds into the account by the time of settlement all is well. What I was saying is that if you were getting those funds by selling shares, the money wouldn't be in the account in time if you sold after you bought.

For example, I have $0 in my account and buy $10,000 worth of share XXX. In two days I sell those shares for $10,500. In one more day Comsec charges me a fee for having insufficient funds in the account to pay my $10,019.95, even though I say "But you can see you owe me $10,459.90 and you know you'll be sticking it into my account in two days", and they say "It's not there now, and it's due now".

Westpac on the other hand, at the time of the sale, would say "Okay, the balance is now positive $459.90, so we won't take that $10,019.95 out tomorrow, we'll just put the $459.90 into the account in three days"

I don't think there's anything wrong with the Westpac system, it's nice to be able to say "Goodness gracious me! Those XXX shares are so cheap, I'm going to buy $20,000 worth right now!" and then at any point over the next three days decide what to sell from the portfolio to fund the purchase I've just made, or choose to raise funds from elsewhere to pay for them. It seems rather daft for Comsec to be demanding money even though they know they owe you more money than you owe them.

 

[poverty]

It seems rather daft for Comsec to be demanding money even though they know they owe you more money than you owe them.

I would say it's to discourage desperados from taking a free punt with comsec's cash. You know, 'If I hit big I'll cash out my winnings, if I lose I'll change my phone number.'

By demanding each purchase be settled they can quickly identify the broke-arses and cut them off.

 

[murphy11]

With Westpac I can make a trade and not pay until settlement, and if I sell the shares before settlement there is no issue even if the cash account has too little money to cover the trade.

Do we have a list of brokers that allow you to settle like this? i.e. that don't require you to have "available funds" in advance before you can make a purchase?

• Commsec - allow this regardless of which bank you are settling from? up to what limit?
• Westpac - allow this up to $10k in excess of your balance? extra fees if you are not settling from a Westpac account though?
• What about Bell Direct, E*Trade, Macquarie Prime, etc?

 

[Synergy]

You can sign up to their more professional service, and pay less commissions

Is there a way you can get cheaper than $19.95?

 

[skc]

I would say it's to discourage desperados from taking a free punt with comsec's cash. You know, 'If I hit big I'll cash out my winnings, if I lose I'll change my phone number.'

By demanding each purchase be settled they can quickly identify the broke-arses and cut them off.

Is it really Comsec's money? When you buy you settle T+3, when you sell you settle T+3. It's the seller's money.

And people - please please please don't buy shares that you can't pay for... you might make money for the first 20 trades, but the 21st trade would be your undoing...

 

[nulla nulla]

Is there a way you can get cheaper than $19.95?

I use Comsec, their published brokerage charges are:

Trades up to $10,000.00 - Brokerage is $19.95
Trades from $10,000.01 to $25,000.00 - Brokerage is $29.95; and
Trades over $25,000.00 - Brokerage is 0.12% of the trade value.

I believe some of the other brokers offer lower charges, but I don't know what their requirements are for linked bank accounts and deposits against trades.

I am not employed by comsec, but use them mainly because of the ease of access and ability to link to online bank accounts with cba.

 

[SmellyTerror]

To back up some, there's not problem day trading as far as required funds go: if you sell same day, the only affect on your account is the difference.

(eg With a completely empty settlement account, you can load up on $60,000 worth of ABC, sell it an hour later for $63,000, and three days later money shows up in your account. Comsec doesn't know there's no money in there unless they try to take some out).

The biggest problem with all of this is that if you get a trading halt (for example) while you're holding the bag - and if you're doing this stuff seriously then you have to bank on that happening some day - you need to pony up the cash. Do NOT do this unless you have that money. You could lose your house.

Also: Comsec really blows for this sort of thing. You've got rotten brokerage and abysmally slow order entry. If you can make the minimum requirements ($25,000), Interactive Brokers has half the brokerage, a much lower minimum charge ($6), and MUCH faster order entry (one-click if you want). Of course, you need have margin in your account, but seriously, if you don't have access to the money (or equivalent) you shouldn't be doing this anyway.

(If IB is too scary (and it IS scary), even Bell Direct is better than Comsec from a brokerage point of view).

...and if you are serious about day trading, have a good hard look at forex or index trading. Even better brokerage (and equivalents), no concerns about trading halts etc, vast liquidity (depending on what you pick), and all the charting stuff works just as well. You also have all the leverage you can eat.

PS: I should mention that Comsec is fine for longer term trading (though, do they still charge for conditionals? That's just dodgy, IMO...) - at longer time frames the brokerage hit isn't as significant. Day trading, though, is very quickly eaten up by that lil' critter. Work out how much movement you need just to make back the brokerage (in AND out, remember)... Now work out how you'd do with 0.06%.

 

[Synergy]

Some may see the fact that you can 'overbuy' with comsec as a disadvantage, but for me I really like (most of the time) being able to do it.

I put trades on each day which may or may not execute. If i can only afford to buy 2 stocks and end up buying 4, it means i have to sell 2 by the end of the next day. I'd rather have the option of which 2 i sell over the random luck of the execution order.

Of course if I can only buy 2 but buy 10... Then i'd probably rather they didn't let me do it. A risk that I think is worth taking I guess...

ST is IB .06 or .08%? From what i see on their website it's .08.

 

[SmellyTerror]

Well bugger me, so it does. Coulda sworn I got 0.06% last week, and I can't imagine my little account is getting any bennies.

...I'll have to go back to my statements to check. Sorry about that.

 

[barney]

Is it really Comsec's money? When you buy you settle T+3, when you sell you settle T+3. It's the seller's money.

And people - please please please don't buy shares that you can't pay for... you might make money for the first 20 trades, but the 21st trade would be your undoing...

I assume from the "three pleases" SKC, that you have had some experience with that scenario ...... I have as well , and your advice, although it will most likely be missed/ignored by the unwary, is a very important ingredient to longevity in the trading game ....

As for day trading stocks in general ..... someone suggested Index or Forex might be a better option in that regard ...... I tend to agree, but day trading is a specialised field, and not for the inexperienced .......

Now where is TH ("Trembling Hand" for recent ASF graduates) at the moment? ....... One of the few "real deal" day traders to grace the ASF shores ..... Hopefully when he gets back from his overseas gallavanting, he will drop back in with some more pearls of wisdom for us mere mortals to muse over