After a short while of self doubt, I'm back and feeling good about the investment world again. I had a meeting with my direct manager who said that they have no problems at all with putting me forward to become a full-time staff member. This is, of course, good news on two fronts; I've got the feeling of feeling more stable in my employment. And, of course, I've already mentioned earlier in this blog about the extra money that this will provide for me to use in investing.
In other news, I've had a look around the services offered by my broker. Now, I know that I haven't actually used them at all yet (that long weekend that I was talking about previously really took a big bite out of my pay - another downside of being a temp), but, I do want to be completely prepared so that when I start purchasing stock, I don't make a complete arse of the whole thing and loose money due to not being ready.
So, back to the point that I was getting at - My current broker only deals with domestic ASX-listed companies. This is, of course, a restriction. It does allow the ease of transacting when I want to buy something locally without having to transfer funds from my normal everyday bank account that my salary is paid into, but the obvious limitations mean that if I stay just with that broker, I'm going to breach that golden rule of diversification. Even though I can invest in companies listed on the ASX, I would also be opening myself up to massive problems if the Australian economy took a downturn.
Right now, the AU$ and US$ are showing a favourable exchange rate for me. Going along with the news recently of Bin Laden being killed, I'm thinking that the US economy will be getting a boost soon from Americans being more relaxed about everything and, therefore, spending more. If this occurs, any stock purchased in US companies now would then be, effectively, worth more instantly.
In the meantime, seeing that I'm looking at a long-term strategy, any investment made in the US market would prove favourable (going on the principle that the companies that I am investing in are going to be internationally-effected businesses.)
For example, Intel Corp was announced to be the manufacturer of chips that Apple Inc are going to be using in even more of their computers. Going along with the crazy Apple sales that have been happening pretty much since the iPhone came out (and the boost after the iPad), the units sold by Intel will be, of course, quite vast. However, this isn't something that is limited to just the US market, of course, so the US$-AU$ comparison doesn't really make much of a difference in their sales.
Therefore, due to all of this, I have decided to look into other brokers. The first one that seemed to pop up on most types of searches was E*Trade. Now, I normally wouldn't mention the names of companies that I'm going to use (or am using) however they are such a massive international firm, that I don't think that giving them a mention is going to really give them any more of an advantage over other companies!
The reasons that I've chosen to go with E*Trade is because they provide a free software download for me to be able to make the purchases and sales that i want myself, without having to call up a broker or use a website. Their platform also allows research to be done (from what I can see) quite easily. Not only that, but they also provide a BlackBerry application that seems to mirror the PC platform.
I've not downloaded the BlackBerry app yet, so I've yet to check to see if it works outside of the US (E*Trade being, of course, an American brokerage).
