E*Trade SA has announced the addition of the E*Trade Knowledge Centre to its Web offering.
Available free to anyone visiting the site, the E*Trade Knowledge Centre is a repository of articles that cover a range of investment issues. Consisting of 400 articles, the E*Trade Knowledge Centre is a fully-fledged investment education centre for the not so well informed and the well informed.
The E*Trade Knowledge Centre was born out of an awareness that the South African public is more inclined to use a friendly online reading-room for exploring financial matters than traditional textbooks.
"We are not only interested in the acquisition of customers from online and traditional brokerages, but rather the conversion of passive investors to active investors," says Michael Feldner, marketing director of E*Trade SA.
Feldner sees his personal challenge as assisting average South Africans to become more investment-savvy. "Historically, we, as a nation, have not had sufficient control over our investments and that`s because we have not been encouraged to learn about the process of investing."
The E*Trade Knowledge Centre covers the basics of investing in SA, before moving on to more sophisticated areas that include topics like investment strategies, how to make sense of charts, technical analysis and how to read and interpret financial statements. Key features of this learning experience are a simple structure with the ability to dig down into concepts to gain deeper insight. Articles and authors have also been chosen on the basis of their ability to communicate clearly and concisely.
E*Trade stands to gain from educating investors, as this is clearly a fundamental component of taking control of one`s financial future.
The centre has grown out of a relationship that exists in the US between E*Trade Group, Amazon and top US publishers. These publishers allow substantial excerpts of a range of top-selling investment titles to be located within E*Trade`s Knowledge Centre.
Excerpts can be read on the site as well providing a click-through onto the Amazon site where the title can be purchased. E*Trade SA is building up local resources based on the same model to give the local Knowledge Centre more relevance.
"Although there is a slight bias towards the US market, there is more than enough on generic investment strategies that affect investors in any market," says David Rothschild, E*Trade SA`s CEO, "and naturally, we will build up our local content over the coming months."
The E*Trade Knowledge Centre can be accessed from the E*Trade SA home page at www.etrade.co.za.
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