Share trading & Investments

[gerhard]

I was wondering about how share trading works in NZ. In SA I love the idea of online share trading (especially web-based interface from Standard Bank). Do the banks in NZ offer a similar service, or do you need to go through a broker? What are the brokerage fees charged there? Are there any cheaper ways of investing, equivalent to buying Satrix exchange traded funds with a debit order here in SA? Is the market totally open, in other words, can I buy and sell on the Korean exchange from NZ if I wanted to? Any limits on the amounts that you can trade offshore?

Any other info you deem relevant would be highly appreciated!

[Johan01]

Some of the mojor banks do profide this facility. A huge chunck of kiwi's have share's around the world, though having said that I have also seen huge losses during the last year and that is still continueing. The tax laws regarding dividends and profits/losses made on shares is extremely complicated in NZ and everyone who has shares now basicly have to make use of an expert in that part of the taxation field just to complete their annual tax return. You would have a potential 5 different ways to calculate your taxation depending on a lot of factors you could decide on which bases to be taxed ... so sterkte