KEY POINTS:
A Kiwi-made online share portfolio system, developed by New Zealand entrepreneurs, is making the big move across the Tasman.
Sharesight, launched earlier this year, is being sold as an easy way for smaller share owners to track investments without paying big bucks to traditional full-service brokers.
Sharesight managing director Tony Ryburn, said many of the features offered by the Kiwi-made system had not been available in Australia before and he's hoping the greater popularity of DIY share ownership will soon make it an Aussie favourite.
For a monthly $5 fee, a subscriber can have Sharesight keep track of a single portfolio, with shares from 5 companies. A $19 monthly subscription monitors three portfolios with an unlimited number of companies. For $39 a month, a subscriber gets 10 portfolios.
A move to Australia has always been a goal of the Sharesight team, with
six million Australians invest directly in shares and a larger number preferring to use online discount brokers to buy and sell shares.
"This places them firmly in Sharesight's target market because they are familiar with online services but do not have access to a comprehensive portfolio management service," said Ryburn.
One of Sharesight's big promises is an easier way to calculate tax on share investments, and this will be pushed as a big plus for Australian users, where, unlike in New Zealand, a capital gains tax is imposed on share investments.
Since the world's stock markets have been tumultuous over recent months, Ryburn says better ways of figuring out performance are vital. This is particularly true in Australia, where investors tend to have a much larger proportion of their investments in shares.
"Many DIY investors do not know their true returns and as a result they tend to overestimate the negative impact of the current financial turmoil on their long-term performance. They also tend to underestimate the positive impact of their dividends. This can lead to poor investment decisions".
The Sharesight system calculates true returns for each share and the total portfolio.
All the user needs to do is enter the number of shares bought in each company and the date of purchase. Dividends, tax credits and adjustments for things like splits and bonus issues, are entered automatically from the Sharesight data base going back over 10 years.
Ryburn says another Sharesight advantage over rival products is its independence from any broker, which means the investors can go and use any broker they like to buy and sell shares.
