An introduction to fundamental investing
Description
Once you’ve attended the “basics of investing" and are getting more critical about your investment decisions, you will gain much value from this course.
The course is designed for people who want to start putting "fundamentals" to work, and shows how simple and easy it is for Standard’s online users to find and use fundamental data – for their own benefit.
What are fundamentals?
BBy looking at the economics of a business, the balance sheet, the income statement, management and cash flow - investors are looking at a company's fundamentals. This can help them determine a company's health as well as its growth prospects.
Unlike its cousin technical analysis, which focuses only on the trading and price history of a stock, fundamental analysis focuses on creating a portrait of a company. It’s all about identifying the intrinsic or fundamental value of its shares and buying or selling the stock based on that information.
The course will help you to:
Understand your own investment profile better
See what the popular fundamental measures are, and what they mean
See how the measures are grouped into three groups - Valuation; Financial Strength; and Yield or Return
Content includes examples of share selection using fundamentals for your portfolio. All concepts are clearly illustrated with actual examples from the JSE using tools and data available to you within the online trading website.
The course is presented by Stuart Thompson, an independent asset manager.
Who can attend
Standard Bank Online Share Trading Clients only.
Cost / Duration
Free! 1.5 hours – Midweek. Please check the website to see if your city is covered.
Bookings can be made through the website once you have logged into your share trading account.
Trade to Trade Well
Description
Regardless of what you’re trading – be it derivatives, shares, indices, commodities or any combination thereof – at the end of the day, trading is all about one thing: having a plan.
So what’s your plan? How do you manage the emotions of trading? What gets you into a trade? Are you ruthless with stop losses? Do you have an exit plan for when you enter a trade?
What about managing risk? How big is each trade? How many trades before you wipe out?
Successful trading requires knowing what's important, understanding your position within the market and how that affects you.
This two-hour presentation looks at all the aspects of trading - from having an initial overall plan to system design and trade execution. We cover market truths and how they impact the trader, dealing with trader bias, as well as the two big killers: fear and greed.
The course is designed to be challenging and helps all levels of traders move to the next level.
Who can attend
Standard Bank Online Share Trading Clients only
Cost / Duration
Free! 2 hours – Weekday Evenings. Please check the website to see if your city is covered.
Bookings can be made through the website once you have logged into your share trading account.
Introduction to Technical Analysis
Description
Technical analysis is the study of market price movements, primarily through the use of charts, for the purpose of forecasting future price trends. This can be useful in deciding when to buy or sell shares for both investors and traders.
This course is being run by Riette Kotze and will cover the following topics:
- Intent
- Critical components
- Fundamental versus Technical Analysis
- Invest versus trade
- A step by step approach from selection to timing
- Technical Analysis
- Trending Indicators
- Trading Indicators
- Things to Consider
- Chart types
- Chart patterns
- Support and Resistance
- Strategy
- Summary
This a full day course (8.30am to 4.30pm) and includes lunch.
Who can attend
Standard Bank Online Share Trading Clients only.
Cost / Duration
Free! 5 hours – Saturdays Most major cities.
Book via the website once you have logged onto your share trading account.
Derivatives Course
Description
Derivatives are exciting and innovative investment tools that can be used by both traders and investors.
The key benefit to trading derivatives is leverage. Put simply, leverage allows you to get exposure to a large parcel of underlying shares for a relatively small capital outlay.
Derivatives also give you the ability to benefit from both bullish and bearish views on the market by either short selling or trading in put warrants. Derivatives, however, are not only used for leverage - investors could use them to protect or enhance the value of their portfolios.
This course covers all the derivatives available to an online share trading client, including both listed and
over-the-counter products.
Topics covered include:
- Vanilla warrants
- Knockout warrants
- Share Instalments
- Exchange Traded Notes (ETN's)
- Futures (single stockk, index, currency and commodity)
- Contracts For Difference (CFD's)
- Using the website effectively
- Trading strategies
Who can attend
Standard Bank Online Share Trading clients only.
Cost / Duration
Free!
5 hours – Saturdays - Please check the website to see if your city is covered.
Bookings can be made through the website once you have logged into your share trading account.
Understanding company financials and announcements (Intermediate)
Description
The course covers two important areas – basic financial statements and company announcements.
The basic financial statements section introduces the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement, which together provide both a static snapshot and a moving picture of the financial condition of the company. The standard data in these three reports is explained, with typical characteristics of attractive and unattractive financials being emphasized. Guidance is given on the conclusions available (and pitfalls) when these financials are read. Formal education in accounting is not required or assumed for course delegates, but obviously always helps!
The company announcements section uses real published examples to show what companies include in their required 6-monthly and annual reports, and so helps investors be wiser when reading these “paid announcements”. It also explains the SENS notices by which companies must communicate with the market, again with examples of this category. Some of the spin which companies use to show their announcements in the best light is also highlighted.
A high level of interaction will be accommodated, since at this level work-shopping of questions and concepts are vital to confirm and reinforce the learning.
Who can attend
Standard Bank Online Share Trading clients only.
Cost / Duration
Free!
5 hours – Saturday mornings Most major cities.
Book via the website once you have logged onto your share trading account.
Detailed option course (warrants & instalments -Intermediate)
Description
Traded on the JSE Securities Exchange options (share instalments and warrants) are an exciting and innovative investment tool for the South African investor.
One of the key benefits of an option is leverage. Put simply, leverage allows you to get exposure to a large parcel of underlying shares for a relatively small capital outlay. Another benefit is that an option gives investors the potential to maximize financial returns while strictly limiting potential losses and allow investors with either a bullish or bearish view to trade profitably through the issue of both call and put warrants.
Topics covered in detail include:
- What are share instalments and warrants
- Dividend yield play
- Calls and Puts
- The Greeks
- Pricing
- Black and Scholes Pricing Model
- Warrant do's and dont's
- Using the website effectively
- Trading Strategies
- Frequently Asked Questions
A high level of interaction will be accommodated, since at this level work-shopping of questions and concepts are vital to confirm and reinforce the learning.
Topics covered include:
Who can attend
Standard Bank Online Share Trading clients only.
Cost / Duration
Free!
4 hours – Saturdays Most major cities.
Trading Index Futures (Advanced)
Description
ALSI futures are considered by successful South African traders to be the holy grail of trading due to its liquidity, low cost structure, generally tight spread and overall great opportunity for trading.
With that in mind Standard Online Share Trading has introduced this new course to familiarise clients with these products and to offer three potential trading strategies.
The course will ensure a full understanding of the three available futures indices on Standard Online Share Trading (ALSI, ALMI and DTop) including the no-nonsense aspects of trading them, risks, costs, benefits and the tools used for trading them.
Also included will be three practical and hands on trading systems for trading the ALSI (two intra-day systems and one overnight system). All three systems will be demonstrated using the Easy Trader charting platform.
The presenter will be Simon Pateman Brown.
PLEASE NOTE This course is aimed at advanced traders - at a minimum one should have attended the Trade to Trade Well course, have a good grasp of the concepts of trading and already be a profitable trader looking to take your trading to the next level. Further while the concept of trading is simple enough those attending need to fully understand that trading is all about psychology.
WEALTH WARNING - Futures index trading carries a wealth risk warning – one can lose more than one invests.
Who can attend
Standard Bank Online Share Trading clients only.
Cost / Duration
Free!
1.5 hours – Midweek Most major cities.
Book via the website once you have logged onto your share trading account.
