CONTANGO MICROCAP LIMITED (CTN) - The Company is a listed investment company specialising in investment in the microcap sector (i.e. those companies listed on ASX except for the companies included in the ASX 300 Index). Has a St. George Margin lending GR of 50%.
Global Masters Fund Ltd (GFL) - This is a wierd one as it basicly invests in Berkshire Hathaway shares.. i.e. it exists solely to ride on Warren Buffets coat tails, but providing easy access for Australian investors.. less their management fees of course. Has a St. George Margin lending GR of 60%.
Platinum Capital Ltd (PMC) - Has a St. George Margin lending GR of 55%.
Templeton Global Growth Fund(TGG) - Has a St. George Margin lending GR of 55%.
Platinum Capital Ltd and Templeton Global Growth Fund appear similar in overview.
AMP Capital China Growth Fund (AGF) - “.. invests in China A shares listed on China’s Shanghai or Shenzhen exchanges”. Has a St. George Margin lending GR of 65%. Very new so no return results yet.
Hyperion Flagship Investments Ltd (HIP) -Has a St. George Margin lending GR of 60%.
Hunter Hall Global Value (HHV) LIC.. has a St George Margin lending GR (Gearing Ratio) of 65%
Hunter Hall International Ltd (HHL) has a St. George GR of 45%
Australian Ethical Investment Ltd not in the St. George list of acceptable securities.
Just read on aus.invest that Travis Morien, the most informative and helpful poster on there has updated his aus.invest FAQ, as well as using a content management system to keep it all under control: link to the new version of the aus.invest FAQ.
I’ll leave the older version linked in the permalinks until it “comes out of beta”.
While hunting around for “ethical” index funds I found this index, which seems to be the right one, but there don’t appear to be many index fund products that track it, at least ones that are available to the non-institional investor. Still hunting around though more though.
After just investing in managed funds via an Etrade Australia account for a while I thought I’d investigate margin loans.. after checking out
Etrades Comparison of available linked margin loan products I went with the St George option.
Got the account credentials and logged in, all straight forward.. I’ve got an Etrade account that I can buy managed funds with, and a St George margin loan that includes a lot of the managed funds that etrade provides in the approved securities list… all I have to do is transfer the managed funds from my existing account to the new loan account and away I got… not so easy. In fact, impossible. Although I was cheerfully talked through the process by both Etrade and StGeorge staff only to find it.. doesn’t work at all. The way the etrade managed funds system works means it won’t work at all with any of their linked margin loan products.. a bit dissapointing after all the paperwork and effort of setting it up. The intergration only works for buying shares. Bit of a let down but ultimately a learning experience, and has led me to explore other avenues that are similar (but possibly better?) than managed funds but can be bought with the margin loan shared account, such as Listed Investment Companies (see earlier post comparing Streettracks LIC vs Vanguard).
Of course I could go for the funds by just signing up for them directly but I am lazy and want everything managed online with a minimum of messing around with bits of paper, which is what attracted me to etrade in the first place.
The other minor thing is I need to enable the “sweep facility” for deposited cash to actually buy part of the securities being purchased.. none of the documentation or online information makes mention of this (and neither does the online application form linked by etrade), or if it does it is couched in different terminology. Once I sorted all this out however it all works fine, just a few tricks for total newbies to be aware of, though maybe either etrade or stgeorge should publish more info on the actual nuts and bolts of how these two online accounts work together (I suspect it is a new or not frequently used facility as most of the otherwise excellent support staff didnt know how they work either).
This link about EasyStreet Financial Services has some info on how what should be a readily straightforward loan goes off into the grass once the lender’s repeated mistakes, and apathy about assisting when it is apparent something is amiss.
The EasyStreet EasySavings is an OK product, but then so is the online savings account at BankWest’s www.abetterdeal.com.au but with a higher interest rate.
I think these are quite worthy and I have a fair chunk of my investments in them:
Australian Ethical Investment a more deep green investment style - Australian Ethical Large Companies Share Trust.
Looks like they are readying an international ethical share fund as well, from what their web site says.
Hunter Hall Investment Management - Hunter Hall Australian Value Trust, Hunter Hall Global Ethical Trust. HH also has a LIC called Hunter Hall Global Value Limited (ASX: HHV). These take a more negative screening approach, i.e. they try to avoid investing in “bad” companies.
I also like the “index fund” approach to investing from a pure theory kind of viewpoint.. but by their nature I guess the “ethical” managed funds need some kind of active managent. I wonder if there is a way to make some kind of Ethical Index Fund or something.
Decided to start this blog to log observations whilst messing with online investing in Australia. I am not an investment advisor and this is not investment advice. Some of the posts are referencing services, products and investments that I am using, or have purchased. But others maybe be about things that have just grabbed my interest.
DISCLAIMER: If you are stupid enough to mistake any of the stuff on this site as valid investment advice, you deserve to lose your money!