Internet share traders finally get the full picture

By SIMON HENDERY

Internet sharetraders finally have some long-sought additional data with the arrival this week of online market depth information.

"The feedback from clients has been great," said Access Brokerage chief executive Peter Marshall.

"We fought quite a long fight to get it and the clients are pleased we've got it at long last."

Market depth data - a summary of the buy and sell prices and volumes queued up behind a particular stock - have until now been available to investors only over the phone from their brokers.

The Stock Exchange agreed to make the information available for use over the internet this year, but technical issues delayed its introduction last month.

Access Brokerage, Direct Broking and ASB Securities all began supplying depth data to their clients on Monday.

ASB Securities managing director Tim Preston said the firm had also received positive feedback from clients who had been waiting for the service for some time.

After brokers initially baulked at a cost of about 4c each time an internet client viewed market depth data, the exchange agreed to cut the rate to about 2c a view.

In an e-mail to clients last week, Mr Marshall said that because of the exchange's royalty charges, depth information would be available only to Access Brokerage clients who made at least one trade every three months.

One Australia-based sharetrading site, Stocknessmonster, now tells visitors it is not supplying New Zealand depth information because the "royalty structure makes it prohibitively expensive".

But NZSE managing director Bill Foster said the cost to brokers was comparable to the price of information from the Australian Stock Exchange.