Here on the blog, I usually talk about how to save money or how to get the most for your money. But what do you do with the money you have saved up?
It’s important to learn how to grow your money. You can’t just always sell your time and your labor for money. Someday, you are going to be too tired, too exhausted, and too old to do so. You have to start learning how to let your assets work for you – let your assets work to give you money, and not you selling your time and labor working for money.
Not everyone has accumulated enough assets to set them financially free for life – not everyone has a successful business, and not everyone is a big investor. Not yet. Most of us are still working for a paycheck. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start small. You can start investing even with just a small amount, as low as P5,000!
The point is, you have to start an investment because it’s better to have something extra on the side rather than just relying on savings and your paycheck when you need money.
That P5,000 invested in a blue chip stock or a well-managed fund, even if you don’t touch it again, can grow to P6,000 in a few years while you are doing nothing. That’s P1,000 out of thin air, sort of. That’s the beauty of it. Your money is working for you and not you working for the money. Now, don’t you think you need to start something like that in your life? 
Now, if you’re starting an investment strategy, wouldn’t you want to pick a company who is well-regarded and knows what they’re doing?
FIRST METRO SECURITIES ONLINE
FirstMetroSec Online is a one-stop shop online platform for stocks, mutual funds, and other financial services.
Back in the old days, people had stockbrokers who do all their trading for them. If you wanted to buy or sell a stock or do some other things, you had to call your stockbroker, often on the phone, to tell them what to do. It was a bit time-consuming because you had to wait for your stockbroker to get back to you about the results of the transaction, etc…
Nowadays, everything is online! You can log on to your account, and do all your transactions yourself. In many cases, everything is transparent and you are notified of the results of your transactions right away! There are no more delays between you and the stockbroker if time is precious. The downside is, there is also no one else to blame but yourself in case you lose money or miss an opportunity. 
The minimum deposit to open a trading account is only P5,000! If you have an existing Metrobank or PSBank account, that minimum is waived, so there is actually no minimum deposit!
They also have a mobile app for both Android and iOS, so you can also trade on the go.
Just because all of these transactions are available to you at the push of a button, doesn’t mean that you have to be an aggressive investor a la Wolf of Wall Street. Before you start investing, there’s usually a questionnaire to find out what kind of investor you are, and what type of investing you are comfortable with. How much risk are you willing to take? Are you the invest and forget type? Or are you the type to check the stock prices every minute?
I just recently opened an account with First Metro Securities Online to try my hand at a little online investing. I sent in my application and I’m just waiting for my application to be processed. Sign-up is online, but the printout / hard copy with your signatures need to be submitted (government regulations). You can either mail the application form to their office, or course it through any Metrobank branch.
FUNDSMART MUTUAL FUNDS ONLINE PLATFORM
First Metro Securities also recently launched some new products. FundsMart lets you invest in over 25 peso mutual funds of the six leading fund houses in the country using their web-based online trading platform.
You can invest and redeem mutual funds with no additional paperwork, sales loads, and transaction fees with only one First Metro Sec online trading account.
For the few mutual funds that I have, it’s always the bank branch manager who convinces me to invest a little into the bank’s mutual funds, and it is always processed by the bank so I end up not touching it because, blech, paperwork pa and I have to go to the bank pa. As long as it is appreciating in value, I’m okay.
I am actually looking forward to checking out FundsMart since everything is done online. If you are the type of investor who just wants to see your money grow but don’t want to make too much effort watching it like a hawk everyday, mutual funds are a good way to go. They are less volatile than individual stocks, and they are managed by seasoned fund managers. What’s a mutual fund? It’s like hiring your own fund manager to buy and sell stocks for you and to manage it all, but sharing him with many people so you all benefit from his expertise, and spreading the cost so each investor is not burdened with the big cost of maintaining the fund manager’s fees. I imagine when mutual funds started decades ago, that the people who participated in mutual funds knew each other and met regularly. But it’s 2017, and everything is very professional now and you don’t know who your co-investors are.
MARGIN FINANCING FACILITY
If you are a more seasoned investor and you know what you are doing, FirstMetroSec also has a Margin Facility that will enable you to buy more stocks using securities you already own as collateral.
You can buy securities like stocks, etc… by PAYING ONLY HALF the cost and then borrowing the rest of the money from FirstMetroSec. This doubles your buying power and magnifies your earning potential.
Interest is 0.9% per month, lower than credit cards and other unsecured loans, and there are no set-up costs or annual fees for this service.
My advice is to only use this for “sure-thing” type of securities, if there are such things. If the price of the stock ends up falling instead of rising as you expected, you’ll not only lose money on the stock, but also have debt to pay off. Double whammy. 
However, if the price of the stock ends up going your way, then you will have made 2x than what you would have if you only used your own money. 
This one has a minimum opening amount of P200,000.
