COL Financial Account Guide: Tools, Features, and Services

COL Financial Group Inc., formerly CitisecOnline, is the fastest growing online stock broker in the Philippines with over hundreds of thousands of customers and multi-billion customer assets (source: COL Financial Philippines website).

Most stock investment beginners choose COL Financial Group, Inc. because of its flexible account options (COL Starter: P5,000, COL Plus: P25,000, and COL Premium: P1M), user-friendly online trading platform, access to expert opinion and comprehensive research, and dedicated customer support (See Also: Investing in the Philippine Stock Market Made Easy (Stock Investment Guide 2017).

In this article, I’ll try to provide a comprehensive guide on how to use your COL Financial online platform – its tools, features, and services.

COL Financial Online Platform Menus

Home. It is the default user interface displayed upon login. It displays links to general account services such as My Settings, Change Profile, Service Inquiry, Forms, and others. On the upper main frame, you can see your Account Details – User Info, Equity Value, Account Type, Day Change, and others. Under this frame, you can see links to Latest Research, COL Announcements, and PSE News. On the right are overviews and summaries related to the status of the Philippine Stock Market.

Quotes. It is where you can get helpful quotes about stock investing and trading including stock, stock market, and broker information, dividend calendar, charts, and lists.

• Stock Information displays relevant static and dynamic information related to a specific stock (upon typing a stock symbol) in the Philippine Stock Market.
• Market Information shows current market data including indices, status, and PSEi graphs.
• Broker Information allows you to select a specific stock broker and view all transactions sorted in different parameters for the given day.
• Six-Pack allows you to see and examine real-time price quotes and performance of your selected 6 stocks per page.
• Watch List features your favorite or monitored stocks.
• Charting prompts a new browser window where you can see and analyze a historical graph depicting the fluctuation of stock prices across consecutive trading days.
• COLing the Shots (not a link, rather a monthly publication by COL Financial) provides helpful insights on stock investment opportunities based on global and local economic developments that affect the stock market.

Trade. It is where you execute your buy and sell orders of stocks, check your stock portfolio, and schedule you COL Financial Easy Investment Program (EIP) whenever availed.

• Enter Order allows you to enter your buy and sell orders directly to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
• View/Modify Order gives you the opportunity to review your open orders and request a cancel whenever they have not yet been fully matched.
• Trading History allows you to review all your current and historical orders given starting and ending dates of stock trades.
• Portfolio displays your latest cash (actual balance and buying power), stock positions, access to IPO, tender, and rights offers, and links to your monthly printable ledgers and transaction invoices.
• Off-Hours Order (O-H Order) gives you the opportunity to enter your orders after market closing in preparation for the next trading day.
• O-H View/Cancel enables you to check your Off-Hours Orders (O-H Orders) that have not yet been sent to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
• COL Easy Investment Program (EIP) is an easy and simple way to start investing in the stock market, starting to build your personal wealth while minimizing your risk and maximizing your returns through the time-tested strategy of peso-cost averaging (Read more about this on COL Financial website).
• Limit Day Order (DAY) is a type of order executed during the regular trading periods scheduled Monday to Friday from 09:00-12:00NN and 1:30-3:30PM.
• Good-till-Cancelled (GTC) Order pertains to an order placed to buy and sell stocks at a specified price that remains active until rescinded or executed (check COL Financial website about Limit GTC Order).
• At-the-Close (ATC) Order allows you to enter an order that will be sent to the Philippine Stock Exchange for execution during the market run-off period or between 12:00PM-12:10PM at a closing stock price.
• Rights Offer (on Portfolio tab) is an issue of rights to you as an existing shareholder that entitles a purchase of additional shares directly from the corporation.
• Tender Offer (on Portfolio tab) refers to an offer of purchasing back some or all your shares in a corporation usually at a premium market price.

Research. As it suggests, it is where you can have an access to expert insights and research including Morning Notes, Fundamentals, Technicals, and other Archives.

• Morning Notes presents a summary of what took place in the market the preceding day and the main drivers, important market moving events, and COL Financial experts’ views and insights on the market based on technical analyses.
• Company Update/Reports (Fundamentals) covers a more in-depth analysis of listed companies by the COL Financial research team.
• Snapshot (Fundamentals) contains a summary of helpful information about COL Financial experts selected and monitored stocks.
• Investment Guide (Fundamentals) presents a weekly tabular summary of valuations and market data on all COL Financial monitored stocks including closing prices, outstanding shares, market capitalizations, dividend yields, and others.
• Economic Indicators (Fundamentals) provides you with a bird’s eye view of the Philippine’s economic standing based on historical and latest economic figures.
• Technical Guide (Technicals) provides a tabular evaluation of stock movements and other helpful information such as trend modes and recommendations (buy, hold, take profits, range trade, lighten, sell, and sell into strength).
• Bull’s Eye (Technicals) contains technical analyses snapshot of the Philippine Stock Exchange focusing on the essential happenings in spotlight issues and swings.
• Tech Spotlight (Technicals) illustrates selected technical analysis indicators as well as a few index and stock performance statistics used to gauge index status and aptitude.
• Archives consolidates different research products available on selected securities found in the COL Financial online platform.

Street Smart. It is a special page on the COL Financial online platform that contains other stock investment tools and resources including videos, featured downloads, and stock investment-related local and international news.

Mutual Fund. It provides an access to COL Fund Source – the first and only mutual fund supermarket in the Philippines that gives investors instant access to a wide array of mutual funds. With this, you can already organize, diversify investments, and consolidate portfolio of various mutual funds and stocks in a single online account.

Disclaimer: The author is not affiliated with COL Financial Group, Inc. (COL), however an online stock investment account holder. Please take this article as a helpful tutorial on how to use the tools, features, and services on the COL Financial online platform and not a help page for your other problems and concerns with COL Financial Group, Inc. In addition, the author is not a stock investment expert; hence, the article is simply based on his experience, research, and insights.