Best Execution - or how we place your buy and sell orders in the market

When you purchase or sell an ETF or a number of ETF’s (a portfolio) using Bigwig we purchase or sell those ETF’s on the Australian Stock Exchange in your name. Unless you choose our “Limit” option the price you pay or receive will depend on the market at the time. We are committed to ensuring that you will get the best price available at the time the order is placed in the market. Here is a bit more information about our execution policy.

All ETF’s or portfolios purchased or sold using Bigwig are executed on the stock market as a “Market” order, unless you choose the “Limit” option. This means that we buy or sell at the best price we can at the time that the order is entered in the market. We are able to do this with confidence because Bigwig only offers ETF’s not ordinary shares. The structure of an ETF means that the price on the market should not move very far from the theoretical price of the ETF. Each ETF has “Market Makers”, firms that are employed to buy and sell that ETF on the market and ensure that the price is reasonable at all times. Bigwig keeps an eye on the spreads of ETF’s on the market. That means we look at the difference between the price at which you can buy an ETF and the price at which you can sell an ETF. The smaller this difference is the better. We rank all our ETF’s and we don’t offer ETF’s where the spread is unreasonable. Read more about ETF’s in "Understanding ETF's". This does mean that you will not know exactly how much your ETF is going to cost, or you will receive, until after you have made the purchase or sale. The price of an ETF will move up and down during the day in line with the prices of the shares underlying the ETF. There will be a short delay between the time you submit your order and the time that we place the order into the market. In most cases this will only be a couple of minutes but it may be more depending on circumstances, the time of day and our administrative process. One of the reasons that your order may not be executed immediately is if you place the order outside of our normal trading hours. To ensure that we are dealing at reasonable prices we only execute orders between 10 am and 3pm on trading days.

When you submit an order to buy or sell on Bigwig you will be given the option to transact on a “Limit” basis. If you are buying ETF’s that means that you can stipulate a price above which you do not want to buy. If you are selling you can stipulate a price below which you don’t want to sell. So for instance if you want to buy ETF XYZ you can place an order to buy $1000 of XYZ at a limit price of $20.00. In this case if the price of XYZ on the market was $20.20 your order would not be completed unless the market fell back to $20.00 or below. Our execution partner is Open Markets Australia Pty Ltd. They are the firm that executes the order on the market. Here is a link to their Best Execution Policy and other important documents.