May 13, 1999
By THERESA W. CAREY
All online brokerages say they're unique, but Wang Investments probably is. How many other sites offer both rock-bottom commissions and their entire contents in Chinese as well as English?
We discovered Wang during a conversation with a Chinese-speaking friend, who gave us access to her account so we could test the site by doing some trades.
Wang Investments charges only $8 for a limit order and provides access to selected international as well as U.S. markets. This may be the best choice for native Chinese speakers interested in online investing. For other investors, it's just below the middle of the pack among the 25 sites reviewed so far this year. Overall the site earns 16 points or ** 1/2.
Wang Investments
www.wangvest.com1
| What can be traded online? | |
| Stocks: | Long only |
| Mutual Funds: | 6,000 total |
| Options: | Yes (Equity and index) |
| Bonds: | Live broker only |
| Other: | IRA fees waived if account is over $10,000 |
| Limit Order Commissions: | $8 |
| Minimum Balance: | $5,000 in assets or $20 set-up fee |
| High Account Balance Benefits: | Check writing |
Online Amenities:
Nelson's company profiles; NYSE/AMEX/NASDAQ market statistics; stock
screener; Morningstar mutual fund screener and fund profiles; news (North
America, Europe, Asia); options lookup; charts; calculators, links to many
news and investment sites.
The site itself uses a fairly standard format, with navigation buttons across the top of the page and down the left margin. You can quickly switch to the Chinese version with a click of a button. Somewhat to our dismay, the English side of the site is peppered with typos, though since we don't speak the language we couldn't check the grammatical accuracy of the Chinese side.
You can talk to a broker if necessary to place a trade -- for a bargain $22 commission on limit orders. But don't expect any investment advice. Portfolio reports are skimpy, and transaction history is available for only 90 days, so plan to do your portfolio performance analysis elsewhere.
The trading screen is standard, and does not supply a real-time quote until the order is confirmed. You can trade equities long (short sales are not available, however) and place option orders online, as well as buy, sell and exchange mutual funds. Tracking the progress of an order requires a manual check of an order status report, an inconvenience that cost Wang a point in our Amenities rating.
There's not much in the way of proprietary information here, but you can access Morningstar mutual fund screens and fund profiles. Delayed quotes are available for portfolio and watch list reports, and you can get real time quotes for $10 per month. You can get DTN.IQ Level II real-time quotes and news for $79 a month, $10 off the usual fees.
Wang Investments is a workable site for investors who like low commissions, don't need much hand-holding and are tracking the performance of their portfolios elsewhere. It's especially appealing for Chinese speakers who are active investors; for others, there are a lot better online brokers around.
Wang Investments
| Trade Execution | 3 |
| Ease of Use | 4 |
| Reliability/Range of Services | 3 |
| Amenities | 2 |
| Commissions | 5 |
| Weighted Total | 16 |
| Rating | ** ½ |
| Note: We give extra weight to trade execution, reliability and range of services. | |
Contributing Editor Theresa W. Carey does Barron's annual ranking of online brokers.
What do you think? Please e-mail comments to hgold@online.barrons.com.2
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