Before you invest, you should read carefully about the Risk Disclosure Statement provided by Tiger Brokers (NZ) Limited (“Tiger Brokers”). The objective of the Risk Disclosure Statement is to provide basic information concerning the investments via Tiger Fund Mall and for you to make an informed assessment of the risks and uncertainties associated.
You need to know and understand the risks involved in any transaction you may undertake. This Risk Disclosure Statement does not include all the risks and material information of your transactions. Before you invest, you should fully understand the fundamentals of your transactions, the market(s) underlying such transactions, the nature and scope of your contractual relationship between with Tiger Brokers and other parties, the legal terms and conditions of your transaction, the extent of your risk exposure, and the potential fees, loss, and tax that could possibly be incurred. You should carefully consider whether such transaction is appropriate for you in light of your financial resources, investment experience, investment objectives, risk tolerance, and other related factors.
1. About Tiger Fund Mall
Tiger Fund Mall is a platform that provides investors to subscribe and redeem fund units online. Such fund products may include monetary market fund, fixed-income fund, hybrid fund, and equity fund, which are subject to update from time to time. Each fund is accompanied by its own offering documents, including but not limited to fund prospectus, risk disclosure statement, and historical performance. Before you invest, you should carefully read these documents and determine if the risk level of a fund may fit your risk appetite and if it can fulfill your investment objective(s) as possible.
2. Agreements and Legal Documents
You should familiarize yourself with terms and conditions of any agreement, contract, or confirmation that you may enter with Tiger Brokers and any other parties in relation to your investment via Tiger Fund Mall. You must fully understand your rights and obligations under that agreement, contract, or confirmation and carefully study the transaction mechanism and understand the potential risks involved. You may not sign any agreement, contract, or confirmation unless you are familiar with the contents or effects or you have been explained the contents and effects by your professional advisers.
3. Nature of Service
You should note and accept that the Tiger Fund Mall is purely an execution-only function to you. In either case, while you are entitled to expect Tiger Brokers or our employees or representatives to answer your queries, such answers do not constitute any advice to your investment in question and should not be assumed to be backed by any prior reasonable due diligence or research or specifically suitable for you to rely on. You should consult with professional service independently to acquire specific advice for your specific financial need(s) and investment objective(s).
4. Investment Performance
Due to market conditions and any other relevant factors, past performance does not guarantee future results. Investment principal and returns value will fluctuate, and the market value of your position may be more or less than your initial investment amounts. You should compare the potential future returns and other features of the investment to other available investments before you undertake any transaction. The actual return paid from your investment may be higher or lower than the rates on other investments.
Before you invest, you should fully understand all the commissions, fees, and other charges you will be liable for, as such costs must be considered in any risk assessment made by you. The charges may reduce your net profit (if any) or increase your net loss (if any). Your net returns from a transaction will be affected by the transaction costs including but not limited to the costs charged by Tiger Brokers and any other parties in relation to your investment.
5. Potential Loss
Your payments or receipts under a transaction will be linked to the particular financial market(s), and you will be exposed to price fluctuation, currency exchange, interest rate, and/or other volatility in such market(s). You may sustain substantial losses on your transactions if market conditions move against your investment objective(s). It is in best your interest to fully understand the impact of market movements, in particular to the extent of profit or loss you would be exposed to when desirable or undesirable occasion occurs. Under certain market conditions, your position may be liquidated mandatorily, and you may be liable for the deficit if incurred.
Under certain market conditions, you may find it difficult or impossible to liquidate your position. This may arise from the rules in certain markets (for example, the rules of an exchange may provide for “circuit breakers” where trading is suspended or restricted at times of rapid price movements). Placing contingent orders, such as "stop-loss" or "stop-limit" orders, will not necessarily limit your losses up to the intended amounts, as you may find it difficult or impossible to execute such orders without incurring losses under certain market conditions.
6. Deposited Cash and Property
You should familiarize yourself with the protection to your money or other property deposited for domestic and foreign transactions, particularly in case of a firm’s insolvency or bankruptcy. The extent to which you may recover your money or property may be governed by specific legislation or local rules, whereas such regulation may differ from your home jurisdiction’s. In some jurisdictions, property specifically identified as yours will be distributed proportionately in the same manner as cash for distribution in the event of a shortfall. Under certain circumstances, you may not be able to fully recover your positions or your initial investment amounts.
7. Electronic Trading Facilities and Systems
Before you undertake any transaction via electronic trading facilities and systems, you should understand the features and details of such facilities and systems. Trading on an electronic trading system may be different from trading on an open-outcry market. Most trading facilities are supported by electronic component systems as your transactions will be executed through the systems. If you undertake transactions on an electronic trading system, you will be exposed to risks associated with the system including the hardware and software failure or disruptions.
As with other types of facilities and systems, electronic trading facilities are vulnerable to blackout, failure, and any other disruptions, which may incur losses to your investment. The result of any system failure may include unexecuted order(s), unliquidated position(s), or any other undesirable results against your investment objective(s). Your ability to recover losses may be subject to limits on liability imposed by the system provider, the market, the clearing house, the member firms, and/or other related parties. Such limits may vary. Under certain circumstances, you may not be able to fully recover your positions or your initial investment amounts.
8. Transactions in Foreign Jurisdictions
Transactions on markets in other jurisdictions, including markets formally linked to your domestic market, may involve additional risk. Foreign jurisdictions may implement different regulations and provide different protection for your home jurisdiction. Consequently, your investment may not enjoy the same protection conferred by your local authorities. Before you undertake any transaction, you should enquire about any rules or ask for professional advice relevant to your transactions.
Your local regulatory authorities may be unable to compel the enforcement of the rules of regulatory authorities or markets in other jurisdictions where the transactions have been effected. You should understand indemnification available in both your home jurisdiction and other relevant jurisdictions before you transact. Restrictions on foreign capitals, limited repatriation of investment capitals and profits, and special tax treatments may exist in foreign jurisdictions.
9.Liquidity risk
10.Foreign Exchange Risk
You should be aware that your transactions may be influenced by foreign exchange rates. The profit and loss in transactions denominated or settled in a different currency from the currency you carry on your ordinary business or keep your accounts will be affected by fluctuations in currency rates, whether such transactions are effected in your home jurisdiction or a foreign jurisdiction. The bid-ask spread of a currency conversion may influence as there is a need to convert from one currency to another.
11. Bonds and Debt Securities
You should understand and be aware of the natures and characteristics of bonds and debt securities. Bonds and debt securities investments offer fixed returns over a defined period. These instruments carry risks such as credit risk, default risk, liquidity risk, and currency risk.
Credit risk arises from default events that may result in the inability of the issuer to pay interest or principal outstanding. Default risk is high when the bond or debt securities are rated as non-investment grade or even have no credit rating. In a default situation, the buyer may lose interest and principal. Liquidity refers to the availability for investors to buy or sell a product into a market in an efficient price. Some bonds and debt securities are in poor liquidity since they are not actively traded. Currency risk arises when holding bonds or debt securities denominated in foreign currency, thus exposing to fluctuations in exchange rate. Under certain market conditions, you may lose more than your original investment amounts if exchange rates move adversely.
12. Equity Securities
Equity securities include common stocks, preferred stocks, convertible securities, equity-linked products, and funds investing in these products. Unlike fixed income products, equity securities do not offer fixed returns over a defined period, and the yield on equity investments depends on multiple factors, such as price difference, dividend distribution, and market conditions.
Equity markets can be volatile. Stock prices rise and fall based on changes in a company’s financial condition and overall market conditions. Stock prices can decline significantly in response to adverse market conditions, company-specific events, and other domestic and international political and economic conditions.
Investment on in mid-cap, small-cap, or micro-cap companies generally involves greater risks than investment on larger companies. The market value of a company may fluctuate dramatically. As a result, under certain conditions, holdings of mid-cap, small-cap, or micro-cap stocks may decline in price even though their fundamentals are solid. They may be more difficult to buy and sell, subject to greater business risks, and more sensitive to market changes, than larger capitalization securities.
13. Over-the-Counter (OTC) Products
You should understand and be aware of the natures and characteristics of OTC products. Since OTC transactions are individually negotiated, the OTC markets may be not active as open market, and the OTC product pricing is not efficient and transparent. Subject to different regulatory requirements and business practices, OTC markets participants may not disclose enough information as open market participants should do. As a result, you may be exposed to credit risk of the counterparty in which you enter into an agreement with. You may also be exposed to liquidity risk since an active trading market may not exist.
14. Derivatives
You should understand and be aware of the natures and characteristics of derivatives. For the purpose of efficient account management, your investments may include derivatives such as futures, options, and warrants. The risk of investment on derivatives includes but not limited to product terms, underlying assets and their prices, and market volatility. Normally, derivative investment only requires minimum investment amount, so called initial margin, which lifts up the leverage for your portfolio. Consequently, unfavorable execution of a short position when price of underlying asset increases rapidly and forced liquidation upon insufficient margin may cause you loss more than your initial investment amounts.
15. Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
You should understand and be aware of the natures and characteristics of ETFs. ETFs are collective investment schemes traded on stock exchanges and may typically replicate or correspond to a stock market index, market sector, commodity, or a basket of assets. ETFs can be broadly grouped into two types. Traditional ETFs track, replicate, and correspond to the performance of an underlying index, such as Standard & Pool 500 Index, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Hang Seng Index. Synthetic ETFs mimics the behavior of traditional ETFs by means of leverage and derivatives such as swaps and performance-linked notes. ETFs are exposed to the economic, political, currency, legal, and other risks of a specific sector or market related to the underlying equity, commodity, asset or index that the ETF is designated to track.
ETFs are subject to tracking error risk, namely the disparity between the performance of the ETF, measured by its net asset value, and the performance of the underlying index, measured by asset price of its index components. Tracking error may arise due to various factors, including but not limited to failure of the ETFs tracking strategy, the impact of fees and expenses, foreign exchange spread between the investment currency and currency the index are denominated, and corporate actions by the index component companies.
Trading ETFs on an exchange does not guarantee that a liquid market exists for ETFs. A higher liquidity risk is also involved if an ETF invests in financial derivative instruments that are not actively traded or the asset price is not easily accessible. This may result in a bigger bid and offer spread and may cause loss.
Investment on synthetic ETFs may be exposed to both the risks of index components and the credit risk of the counterparty in relation to the investment. Synthetic ETFs typically invest in derivatives, some of which are standardized products while other may be customized and issued by counterparties. Investors of synthetic ETFs may sustain losses potentially equal to the full value of derivatives if the counterparty defaults or more if the market conditions move against their investment objectives.
This Risk Disclosure Statement do not purport to disclose or discuss all of the risks and other significant aspects of any transaction. In light of the risks, you should undertake such transaction only if you understand the nature of the above financial products and the contracts which you are entering into and the extent of your exposure to risk. You should therefore consult with your own legal, tax and financial advisers before entering into any particular transaction.