How to Trade Shares or Stocks in Bursa Malaysia

his is Part 7 of my HOW TO START TRADING STOCK IN BURSA MALAYSIA series of articles. We will discussed the Different Type of Collateralised Trading Accounts.

If you missed my earlier posting, you can read them from the link below:

PART 1: OPENING OF CDS AND TRADING ACCOUNT
PART 2 : BUY, SELL AND CONTRA
PART 3 : BURSA MALAYSIA STOCK TRADING FEES AND CHARGES
PART 4 : MARKET AND OFF MARKET TRADES IN BURSA MALAYSIA
PART 5 : TRADING LIMIT AND TEMPORARY LIMIT FOR TRADING STOCKS
PART 6 : COLLATERALISED TRADING ACCOUNT

There are generally two types of COLLATERLISED TRADING ACCOUNTS. I prefer not to include Share Margin (”Margin”) Account as a Collateralised Account because Margin Account is more complicated and functions differently from the basic Collateralised Account.

Brokers in Malaysia either have one or both or variation of both type of Collateralised Account.

As I have mentioned in Part 1 that every trading account need a CDS account. The two type of Collateralised Account differs by the type of CDS account that links to the Trading account.

(1) Client Personal’s CDS Account

This type of Collateralised Account only classify your personal trading account in the Brokers’ computer system as Collateralised Account. The shares are technically still in your name in your CDS account. However, you will need to sign a document or an agreement to allow Broker to sell your CDS shares if you don’t make payment for your contra losses.

TIPS : According to BURSA Depository Rules, the CDS account holder has the right to transfer out shares from his CDS account unless he has been declared a bankrupt or his assets has been frozen by the authorities or he has passed away (ie. died). There have been cases where Bursa Depository instructed Brokers to execute the transfer of shares out to another Broker eventhough the person has contra losses with the Broker. The Broker can only take legal action to recover the contra losses. Therefore Brokers has to take action early to sell client shares or face the consequences of loosing the collateral shares without recovery of contra losses.

It is because of the above reason, Broker will give lower multiple for these type of Collateralised Account. Some Broker don’t even want to give this type of Collateralised account. Too risky.

(2) Broker’s Nominees CDS Account

For this type of Collateralised Account, the Broker will open a CDS account under the Broker’s Nominees company name.

Note: All Brokers registered at least one Nominees company for the purpose of holding clients’ shares as custodian.

You will have to transfer or move your shares from your personal CDS account to the Broker’s Nominees CDS account as collateral. Once your shares are in the Broker’s Nominees CDS account, you can’t transfer out your shares yourself eventhough you are still the end beneficial owner of the shares. You will have to ask the Broker to transfer out the shares and the Broker, under this circumstances, has the right to refuse your request to transfer out your shares if you have unpaid contra losses with the Broker.

Since this type of Collateralised Account is less risky, Brokers will give higher trading multiple to the shares collateral.

For both type of accounts, you can still opt to deposit Cash as collateral but in the end the shares you buy will end up in the CDS until you sell them. Similar for shares collateral, Brokers will give higher trading multiple for Cash deposited as collateral for Collateralised Account Type (2).

There maybe more sophisticated type of Collateralised Account that I may not know about in the market. You will have to scout for them if you like. This end today posting. In my next posting I will introduce a product called ‘Discretionary Financing’. Interested? Subscribe to my Feed to be kept updated.

This is Part 6 of my HOW TO START TRADING STOCK IN BURSA MALAYSIA series of articles.

If you missed my earlier posting, you can read them from the link below:

PART 1: OPENING OF CDS AND TRADING ACCOUNT
PART 2 : BUY, SELL AND CONTRA
PART 3 : BURSA MALAYSIA STOCK TRADING FEES AND CHARGES
PART 4 : MARKET AND OFF MARKET TRADES IN BURSA MALAYSIA
PART 5 : TRADING LIMIT AND TEMPORARY LIMIT FOR TRADING STOCKS

To recap my last posting, I introduced the Normal Trading Accounts and Credit or Trading Limit. In today’s posting I will introduce to you a different type of trading account; Collateralised Trading Accounts.

As the name suggests, you will have to deposit collateral for your trading.

DISADVANTAGES OF A COLLATERALISED TRADING ACCOUNTS

(1) You will have to place collateral such as Cash or Stocks into your trading account BEFORE you have any Trading Limit to Buy stocks.

(2) Your trading limit flactuates based on the value of your collaterals.

(3) Brokers has the right to utilise your cash deposit or sell your stocks to settle any unpaid contra losses. You might have different opinion on which stocks to be sold.

BENEFITS OF A COLLATERALISED TRADING ACCOUNTS

(1) You can have higher trading limit than if you opened a Normal trading account as your collaterals will be given a certain multiple to calculate your Trading Limit. Example; if you have RM100,000 cash and the Broker give you 2x multiple thus your trading limit will be RM200,000. If based on the normal criteria, you Normal trading account might be only RM100,000.

(2) You can still Buy stocks eventhough if your Dealer’s Representative (”DR”) doesn’t have any trading limit for the day. I mentioned in Part 5 that you might not be able to buy if your DR don’t have any trading limit.

(3) As you accumulated stocks that appreciated in their prices, you trading limit will eventually increased based on the multiple given by your Brokers. Thus you take advantage of your stocks in your CDS account rather than letting your stocks sit there idle.

(4) Some Brokers will give value to your unpaid Purchase stocks thus further increasing your trading limit.

CAVEATS:

(a) Some Brokers might give less than 1x of your stocks collateral market value. For example; you have 10,000 stock A with market price of RM1.00. Your Broker give 0.75x of your stock value. Thus your Trading Limit is RM7,500 (10,000 x RM1.00 x 0.75).

(b) Most Brokers will give higher multiple for Cash deposit, such as 1x to 3x.

(c) Almost all Brokers have price capping for their stocks. A PRICE CAP is the maximum value that the Broker will give value.

Example 1: Stock A has price cap of RM0.50. Stock A current market price is RM1.00. If you have 10,000 units of stock A, your collateral value will be RM5,000 (10,000 x RM0.50) eventhough based on the market price your stock value is RM10,000 (10,000 x RM1.00). Market price is the stock price currently traded in Bursa Malaysia.

Example 2: Stock B has price cap of RM1.00. Stock B current market price is RM0.80. If you have 10,000 units of stock B, your collateral value is RM8,000 (10,000 x RM0.80). Since the market price is below the capped price, the collateral value is based on the market price.

Some people has the misconception that if the price cap is lower than market price, the collateral value should be based on the price cap. Example; Stock C price cap is RM1.00 while the market price is RM0.90, therefore if you have 10,000 units of stock C therefore your collateral value is RM10,000 (10,000 x RM1.00) instead of RM9,000 (10,000 x RM0.90). Unfortunately its NOT TRUE!

The price cap is the MAXIMUM price acceptable to the Broker and not the MINIMUM price. So remember this as in future articles the issue of Price Cap will be raised again.

PRICE CAPPING

I will deviate a little to expand on Price Capping. This is important as it affects your trading limit not only for collateralised accounts but also for MARGIN ACCOUNTS. I will dedicate a few articles on Margin Accounts in my future posting. I believe many people will be interested to find out more about Margin Accounts.

There are two methods to cap the price of stocks; INDIVIDUAL STOCKS or GROUP OF STOCKS.

The examples above are price capping based on individual stocks. Brokers relied on the recommendation from their Research Department to recommend a price cap for individual stocks. The methodology of setting the price cap will depends on which approached used by their Research Department. They either used the Fundamentals of the company or based on Technical Analysis of the stock’s price movement.

The other methods for setting price cap is by groups. Some Brokers will give a value for all stocks in a certain Sector or in a certain Board. For example; Broker A might set the price cap at RM10.00 for all Main Board stocks and Broker B might set the price cap for IT Sector as RM5.00. There are also Brokers that used ratio (%) instead of value. For example; Broker C might give 100% market value to all KLCI stocks and only 50% to Mesdaq listed shares.

Brokers might used only value for individual stocks or value for group of stocks or ratio for groups of stocks or a combination of value and ratio. When a Broker used both the value and ratio, the collateral value will be based on the LOWER of both. Remember it is the LOWER VALUE.

Example: Stock D is a KLCI stock. Broker D capping is 100% of KLCI stocks but Broker has also capped stock D individually at RM5.00. If stock D market price is at RM8.00, the collateral value of 10,000 units of stock D is RM50,000 (10,000 x RM5.00) and NOT RM8,000 (10,000 x RM8.00). When compared between the individual price cap of stock D at RM5.00 versus 100% of the market value at RM8.00, the LOWER price of both is RM5.00.

I know its heavy reading today but I hope you get the idea. You can post your questions in Comments and I will try to answer them.

This is just an introduction to Collateralised Accounts. Next posting will cover the type of Collateralised Accounts. Yes! There are different types of Collateralised Accounts. Find out in my next posting.