Smart Pinoy Investor: Top 3 Key Points Why Choose BPI Trade

Among several online stockbrokers available in the Philippines, BPI Trade, while one of the oldest stockbrokerage firms in the country is obviously lagging in terms of the attention they're getting from new investors.

Philstocks.ph by Accord Capital has already made exciting improvements in their trading platforms along the way together with other leading online stockbrokers COL Financial and FirstMetroSec. The fact that these big firms start to invest in their services can most probably be linked to the rising number of investors as Philippines continues to grab the limelight in the international investment arena. Are you not happy you're living in this phase of the Philippines stock market in perfect poise to give rewards to its faithful investors?

It's good news that BPI Trade is also starting to improve its own stock trading platform! It's never too late as they say.

Here's an email I received from them as their client:

Dear BPI Securities Corporation Client,
Greetings from BPI Trade!
We are currently in the process of upgrading BPI Trade in order to provide a state -of- the -art integrated trading platform with the following capabilities:
- Robust system for executing and confirming customers' orders to ensure efficient order execution and accuracy.
- Complete process flow from order taking to settlement, so that you can conveniently pay for stock purchases and accept proceeds of sale as BPI Trade is linked to BPI ExpressOnline which allows direct access to your BPI Account.
- More tools in making well informed investment decisions such as historical charts and fundamental company and economic research.
- Modern portfolio management system to help you monitor and have better control over your equity investments.

A Boring Platform… but do you really need an exciting one?

Many will say that BPI Trade has one of the most boring interface among online brokers in Philippines. While there's so much truth to that, I guess it boils down to your own investment strategy.

As a positive person I always try to be (HAHA), below are some good points I can say with BPI Trade:

1. One of the best features it has is its ability to be linked with your BPI savings account giving you that convenience of handling it with their BPI ExpressOnline facility. This enables you to fund your stock trading account and withdraw your proceeds from it in an online paperless way. You would just need an internet connection and capable gadget to control your cash flow in your investments.

That's especially helpful for those who don't want any hassle in doing the same, as in the case of COL Financial and Philstocks that entails manual sending of scanned copy of withdrawal form and deposit slip respectively.

2. Second, because of its plainly boring page, you won't have the strong lure to actively get involved with it. But hey, that's also what investing exactly is all about - being boring as the rising sun. People easily forget their plan when they're exposed to market action too much. End result? Mindless changing of strategy.

Members of the Truly Rich Club, for example, are all encouraged to sell their stocks once these stocks reach their set target price. The problem for many however is that because they get excited with all the market actions they see on their stockbroker online screen, they're easily tempted to deviate from their original strategy and click that sell button right away after seeing some profits.

That's where the danger lies!

While they might have earned some bucks, they also lose the opportunity to earn more from their stocks in case their market values go higher. It also poses a problem of where stock to go next and put that selling proceeds to make that money work harder! After some time, they begin to see the mistakes they've just committed.

3. Lastly, you have more options of funding your trading account since your trading account has its own settlement account number, much like a bank account number. You can funnel one of your income streams directly to this account thus taking the task of funding off your shoulder.

Say for example you have a tiny business or passive income stream; you can then give this settlement account to your clients where they can deposit their payments making the payments directly part of your investments. The nice thing is that you take advantage of the big number of branches of BPI all over the country by doing this.

That's it! Those are the three good points in choosing BPI Trade as your broker.

Final Note

One of the greatest learning I had this year is the power of selective processing. I have come to realize that in order to attain strong focus, we need to be dedicated to the amount and type of information we receive. Our world has come to the point when it has so much information to process. The thing is we need to unlearn things as much as we need to learn new things. As much as possible, an investor would want to receive only those information relevant and useful to his goals; if he has more than that, he gets distracted, leading to incomplete action or total inaction.

So while BPI Trade is truly boring it can actually be your exciting and faithful partner to your financial journey if you already have a set plan and investment guide. Less distractions, less mistakes.

Have fun investing!

PS: Speaking of BPI, Truly Rich Club (of which I'm a member) has recently advised its member to sell their BPI shares in its November 27 Sell Alert. If you've been following the Strategic Averaging Method (SAM) of the club, your gain would have reached 25-30% in a span of few months.

If you have BPI, you can do the same. Below is the exact word from the club

Sell Alert: BPI
We’ve hit our Target Price of BPI. You may sell BPI.
We feel it’s overpriced at this time because of the speculation that it’s merging with PNB. Obviously, I don’t have a crystal ball. So I’m not saying it won’t go up higher. So we’re only sharing what our analysts believe to be the fair value of BPI—and they feel it’s overpriced at this time.
What happens AFTER you sell is more important: Buy our other SAM companies when you see the dip we talked about last week.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
11/27/2012

This is after the club has upgraded its price more than one month before in another StocksUpdate Alert.

StocksUpdate: Alerts: Keep BPI
The Stock Market is going up like crazy.
Which makes EVERYONE ELSE happy.
But NOT TrulyRichClub Members who have been indoctrinated with our investment philosophy. Were sad. Im not being sarcastic. I really dont like it when the Stock Market goes up. And I wish I had brainwashed you enough to think the way I think.
Because Stocks are more expensive, we buy less shares for our money.
Anyway, the reason I wrote is to tell you that were keeping BPI despite that it hit our Target Price of P80. But our analysts are now upgrading it to P91. So lets keep our favorite stock.
Well give you more details in future Stocks Update eReport.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
10/04/2012