Stock Broking – Gilts & Bonds

Advisory Stockbroking

West Capital Markets offer investors advice on buying stocks and shares on all major indeces – but the final investment decisions are left to the client, the client retains control over each and every investment decision. Unlike other stockbrokers, WestCap advisory services does not require a minimum portfolio size from clients. The combination of advice and dealing services ensures that private clients enjoy the quality of research and services mostly reserved for institutional clients.

Execution Only

West Capital Markets provides a competitively priced, execution only broking service. Our service is concise and straightforward, allowing our clients to take and exit positions with confidence and ease.

Discretionary broking

West Capital Markets’ discretionary stock broking service is one that offers portfolio management as well as dealing. Clients can simply hand over their money to WestCap and WestCap will make all investment decisions. Clients can impose constraints such as ethical investing requirements and retain some involvement in the process if they wish.

West Capital Markets usually charge a percentage of the value of the portfolio annually for discretionary portfolio management. However, we do not usually charge commission for each trade made on a discretionary account. This means that our clients’ interests are put first. Discretionary broking offers the investor the lowest level of control over their investments. It does mean the least work for the investor and should mean the most work put into portfolio management by WestCap. The amount of work required to provide a discretionary service means that most brokers are only willing to offer discretionary broking to clients who have portfolios of a reasonable size (typically GH50,000+, often considerably more) BUT at West Capital Markets all clients, irrespective of portfolio size, are welcomed.
Gilts and Bonds

What are Bonds and Gilts?

A bond is a loan. If a borrower wants to borrow money one of the ways to do it is to issue bonds. With a bond an investor lends money in return for a series of interest payments and, usually, the promise to have the loan repaid on a fixed date.

At West Capital Markets we guide our clients through investing in Ghana government bonds (gilts), International government bonds, bonds issued by European Investment Banks (EIB) and Blue Chip Corporate bonds issued by individual companies.

How do they work?

The main feature that distinguishes a bond from any other loan is that a bond is tradeable. Investors can buy and sell bonds without the need to refer to the original borrower. Over the entire life of the bond the holder receives interest, which is known as the coupon. The borrower also makes a promise to repay the loan (the principal) on the maturity date.

Government Bonds and Gilts

These are the lowest risk bonds, with money invested in governments, and other very secure financial institutes. The interest rate paid out is usually quite small, however there is little risk to your capital. The funds tend to do badly when interest rates are rising, as the interest rate on the bonds becomes less competative compared to high street savings accounts. On the flip side they tend to do very well when interest rates are falling.

Corporate Bonds

West Capital Markets will always strive to invest your money in good quality corporations where there is little chance of bankruptcy. They offer slightly more attractive rates than the government bonds.

High Income Investment Bonds

West capital Markets also invest in bonds that pay a higher rate of interest, and often have very attractive looking yield rates (the average interest rate of all the bonds held). These bonds are less sensitive to changes in the base rate of interest, as they always tend to significantly higher rates of interest than high street savings acocunts. They are more dependant on the default rate (which is the number of companies going bankrupt) which depends more on the state of the economy as a whole.

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