Rakuten Trade unveils division for digital retail investors
KUALA LUMPUR: Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd has introduced a new marketplace where licensed and experienced analysts provide trading ideas, insights and intelligence to support digital retail investors.
Leveraging social media sites, the new division, Equity Sales (ES), generates thematic stock ideas and independent insights that can cater to diverse retail investors, many of whom are made up of millennials with different levels of trading experience.
Rakuten Trade chief executive officer Kazumasa Mise said it created the division in view of the changing landscape where more new retail investors are joining the market.
“There is a surge in non-licensed individuals as well as social media forums that are not monitored or moderated by licensed individuals or investment firms. It is important that trading information is backed by licensed experts to ensure there is no misleading information,” Mise said in a statement yesterday.
Rakuten Trade said the division uses its Telegram channel — Rakuten Trade Ideas — which is open to the public to deliver daily trading ideas and announcements of corporate webinars.
To date, the ES division has hosted more than 20 public-listed company webinars.
The webinars provide direct corporate access to the management about their business outlook and prospects so that retail investors can make informed investing decisions.
“Rakuten Trade also manages its own Facebook group — RakuRanger Community — which is moderated by licensed staff from Rakuten Trade research team, exclusively for its own clients. It aims to draw discussions from previously unmonitored platforms onto a singular monitored one,” it said.
In tandem with this, Rakuten Trade announced the appointment of Vincent Lau to the role of head of equity sales, effective January.
“Lau has already played a vital part in raising the company’s presence in the equities market in the country.
“We are confident that his expertise and sound understanding of the market will enable him to contribute further towards the company’s next chapter of growth,” said Mise.
Lau is a pioneer member of Rakuten Trade and has over 20 years of experience in equities, corporate finance and investment banking from various local and foreign financial institutions in Malaysia.