SA investors can now trade on the world’s best-known IT names, Microsoft and Google, the JSE said on Tuesday. This follows the exchanges listing of single stock futures (SSFs) on both companies.
“Like other international derivatives products, retail investors can trade in these two American companies without using their R2m foreign allowance,” the bourse says.
Allan Thomson, director of derivatives trading at the JSE, says the listing of SSFs on the two IT stocks, as well as the present SSF listing on Apple, allow SA investors to further diversify their portfolios. “Like the other international derivatives listed on the JSE, these can be purchased through any JSE-registered broker in the same way one would purchase local derivatives products,” he says.
This offers investors international exposure cost-effectively on a trusted trading platform with none of the counter-party risk associated with over-the-counter trading, he says.
The other international derivative products trading on the JSE include the likes of Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, Nokia, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, BP, Vodafone and GlaxoSmithKline. “While retail investors and corporate entities do not have any exchange control restrictions, institutional investors do have to comply with foreign portfolio regulations,” Thomson says. “Contracts are priced and settled in rands.” — Sapa
