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Everyone knows that share trading is used to build wealth, but few truly understand how it works. When you trade shares, you’re buying and selling a portion of a company on a share market (or a stock exchange).
Each share has a price. The price of a share is determined by the supply and demand of a company's shares in the market and the company’s present or predicted future performance.
Usually, when a company is performing well, more investors will want to buy its shares and its share price goes up. Conversely, if a company is underperforming and failing to deliver good profits, shareholders may decide to sell their shares.
You can make money from share trading by selling shares for a higher price than you purchased them for or when a company pays dividends.
Active trader brokerage - Australian shares
Competitive broker fees on Australian shares, international shares, forex and CFD trading.
Important: Share trading carries risk of capital loss.
Also called a stock exchange, a stock market is where investors trade shares in companies. Australia is home to a number of exchanges. Stocks in the biggest companies in Australia are traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) however there are two smaller exchanges known as the CHI-X and the National Stock Exchange of Australia (NSX).
Some of the biggest overseas exchanges include the London Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Japan Exchange Group and the Shanghai Stock Exchange. These can be accessed from Australia by using an international stock broker.
Although there are physical stock exchanges, shares are purchased and sold online. To trade shares, you need a stock broker to act as an intermediary to the stock exchange.
A broker can be a full-service broker or an online broker. As well as place trades on your behalf, a full-service broker can give you advice about which shares to trade. An online broker is an online software platform which lets you execute trades yourself.
Online brokers are a low-cost option compared to full-service brokers. If you don’t want to go down the path of using a full-service broker, you can use share trading software to help you learn about which shares to trade, in addition to an online share trading platform to make trades.
Important: Share trading can be financially risky and the value of your investment can go down as well as up. “Standard brokerage” fee is the cost to trade $1,000 or less of ASX-listed shares and ETFs without any qualifications or special eligibility. If ASX shares aren’t available, the fee shown is for US shares. Where both CHESS sponsored and custodian shares are offered, we display the cheapest option.
There are three ways to make money from share trading: capital growth, dividends and tax concessions.
This is the most common way to make money from share trading. This is simply where you sell shares for more than you paid and get a profit.
This is when the directors of a company chooses to pay company profits to shareholders. Dividend payments are based on the number of shares you own. These types of shares are called income shares. Not all companies pay dividends, and directors can reinvest profits to grow the company rather than pay a dividend. These types of shares are called growth shares.
A share can be fully franked. This is a term to describe when a company has already paid tax on your dividends. You can use franking credits to reduce the tax you pay on other income.
You can trade these types of investments using online share trading platforms or through a broker.
This type of stock is publicly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) or the National Stock Exchange of Australia (NSX). Shares in the top 200 Australian companies are traded on the S&P ASX 200.
You can also trade on overseas markets. You can trade shares in some of the biggest companies in the world from Europe, Asia, the U.S and London.
Managed funds and exchange traded funds (funds that are listed on a stock exchange) are investment tools you can use to access multiple assets, including shares, property, commodities and derivatives.
Share trading can make you money in the short term and the long term, plus they present tax benefits for investors.
Compare share trading accounts
Share trading is a way to make money. Generally speaking, the greater the potential gains, the greater the risk – share prices can rise and fall quickly.
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