SWF popped 12% yesterday on larger than normal trading volumes to $0.43.  Buying has increased since 8 September.  SWF hit a low of $0.295 2 weeks ago on 26 August.  

SWF is now the #4 broker in Australia.  Latest presentation outlined that they will continue to spend to improve their platform and include investment options such as cryto.  

Share trading is a commodity product so they will have to differentiate in terms of better service or quality to continue to gain market share.  The gorilla, Comsec will not compete on price which has helped SWF continue to gain retail clients.

Selfwealth has reached 100,000 active traders, up from 95,189 on 30 June 2021.  It is now  the fourth largest player in the online broking industry.  Although active traders have grown the problem shown in the last quarterly report was that these trader's have been less active in trading with total trades down.  However, the previous period were all time record trading periods.

“The Company’s growth strategy is to continue diversifying revenue streams by offering a broad product portfolio to investors, supporting their wealth creation journey while continuing to challenge the incumbent bank-backed online investment platforms in Australia.”

SWF has diversified into US trading and will move to other markets in the future. Enthusiasm in the company has waned after reaching a high of $0.80 and the share price has steadily declined to $0.355 now due to a drop off in share trades.

There is increasing competition but SWF is holding its own at this stage.  SWF prides itself in customers having their own HIN and their flat $9.95 brokerage.  At some stage, SWF might be attractive to a bigger overseas player wishing to enter the ASX market.  SWF is in a commodity business so there is always a risk of competition coming and undercutting them.  They are in the process of improving their platform and adding more functionality to retain traders. 

One of my tests of management is to send them an email to see how long they take to respond (if they respond at all) and how they respond.

You don't necessarily want a CEO/MD to respond right away (don't they have better things to do than respond to emails - why aren't you running to business).

No response at all, especially if I'm a shareholder is not a good sign.

Brushing off my questions in the email also is a red flag.

I emailed the MD of SWF, Rob Edgley last week as I had significant issues in setting up my US trading account (applied in December but still had not been setup up by early March even after numerous emails and chats on their website).

Within a few days my account was setup and my issues resolved.  

I eventually did get a response from Rob by the end of the week apologizing for the issues, advising that he had contacted the Head of Client Relations right away to get on to the issue and he explained that he was implementing short and medium term solutions to improve client services which had not been at their usual high standards over the last few months.

Rob, gets a tick from me in this measure of management testing. 

30 April 20: Datt Capital became a substantial holder holding 6.37% [12.37m] at around $0.21.  They put out a research note outlining their thesis.  This is a positive recognition of the company.

17 Mar 20: Lally +71,428 @ $0.14 [729,596] +$10,000

6 Mar 20: 2,581 new active traders. 

11% growth in overall active traders and 51.3% growth in monthly acquisition rate. 

Cash balances of 26,000+ active traders grew to $217.22m at the end of Feb, up 33.3% MOM. 

Feb finished with 42,396 trades up 28.7% on record breaking January.