Foreign exchange and contracts-for-difference (CFD) trading platform provider easyMarkets is looking to attract more SMSF clients through education programs and networks informing trustees how these instruments can be used properly to enhance their portfolio returns.
EasyMarkets managing director Daniel Byrne told selfmanagedsuper his firm’s focus on education provides a significant point of difference in comparison to the other service providers in the space.
“We have recently come out with some great innovations which will help us provide a lot more of a unique offering, particularly for self-managed super fund traders, and we are certainly looking to grow out our presence there,” Byrne noted.
“We have a huge focus on education and risk management and providing our members with training because the way we look at it is it is our responsibility to educate clients to give them the tools, the infrastructure and the ongoing support so they can be more successful and prolong their life as a trader that will result in more successful trading outcomes.
“You don’t see that from many of the other providers out there.”
According to Byrne, easyMarkets has identified SMSF trustees to be akin to fund managers and, as such, his firm’s approach is to teach them how the institutions, which are also fund managers, go about using these investment avenues and instruments.
The face-to-face training sessions easyMarkets provides cater for different FX and CFD trading strategies covering intraday or active traders, medium-term traders looking to take advantage of market swings, and long-term traders looking to invest based on macro-type fundamentals.
Byrne said there is an emphasis on risk mitigation due to the recognised risk-averse nature of SMSF members.
“We’re aiming to give traders a systematic approach to entering trades and also putting stop-losses and take profit triggers so they are not leaving anything to chance, they are not trading on the fly, they are not making decisions in the heat of the moment, they are very much trading with a structure and a set of rules to follow at all times, and in this market that is really what is required for people to be sustainable long term,” he said.
To further strengthen the education theme and increase its appeal to the SMSF sector, easyMarkets is about to launch an SMSF active traders group.
“It’s a program geared towards the self-managed super fund profile of investor and so this group is going to be all about empowering or giving the self-managed super fund trustee, that is acting like a fund manager, knowledge in the best practices of the institutional way of trading,” Byrne said.
“It means while they are managing their own fund, they are doing it from a position of strength and from a position of what is considered to be best practice in how they manage risk and how they look for trades and how they structure their portfolio.”
