normally what platform to use when trading US market? I try not to go through the local bank due to their high commission charges. How abt go straight to their market...currently using CIMB with 0.4% brokerage.

Any ideas all sifu out there?

Assuming sell price is not much differ from purchase price, thus the in and out will cost around 0.4% x 2 = 0.8% or minimum $25 bucks, another 0.3% will be clearance charges. I'll hv to wait till the share rose minimum 2.1% to have a safe flipping with 1% gain.

Read a few forumers' post, they are shorting the shares, local bank giving US market trading services allow shorting? how?

I found certain online portal which charges low brokerage fees, lower than that of CIMB $25 and is per contract rather than percentage of value traded. Easy for me to flip if flat rate is applied.

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 22 2011, 09:41 PM

tks for your reply....currently awaiting reply from TradeKing, OptionXpress of international trader participation. Not all accept foreigner traders. Optionshouse - the best not for foreigners .

Thus far only OptionXpress provides the best brokerage fees for foreigners:

http://www.brokerage-review.com/rankings/b...l-investor.aspx

Will send an inquiry to Ameritrade and MB Trading - tks for the leads.

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Added on October 22, 2011, 11:23 pmtks for your reply, I'm curious ScottTrade has replied, they doesn't accept international investors..... How do you open with them? r u their PR or etc?

Normally local banks provide a multi-currency account for us to trade in the desired currency. No conversion loss, only from initial amount and only investors decide to convert back to RM to use, but still very irritating if there is a contra gain, they will force you to convert back to RM instead of US. Worst still, should there be any dividend declared, there will charge you RM50 for that and force you again to convert back to RM ....

so now, I'll hv to use direct broker to deal with it. Bye-bye CIMB.

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Added on October 22, 2011, 11:27 pmGood website for comparison!!
http://www.stockbrokers.com/compare/mbtrad...s-optionsxpress

Best for international investors i.e. like us to trade in US:
http://www.stockbrokers.com/reviews/internationaltrading

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 22 2011, 11:30 PM

TD Ameritrade brokerage fees explained:
http://www.tdameritrade.com/pricing.html

Go to this webpage to know better of the charges, following link is MB Trading:
http://stockbrokers.mbtrading.com/commissi...spx?page=Stocks

This is the best broker for International traders/investor/foreigners:
http://www.stockbrokers.com/reviews/internationaltrading

However, shouldn't compare directly bsc some other factors need to take into consideration. Thus far MB Trading is the best as in lowest brokerage fees for international traders but not "ease of use"

Use this to do the direct comparison, scroll till the lowest and u will know whether this broker provides services for international investors:
http://www.stockbrokers.com/compare/mbtrading-vs-questrade

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 23 2011, 06:19 PM

bull still ongoing...EXK not bad from below $9 to >$10...in just 2 days.

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 26 2011, 11:46 PM

Last minute, China to the rescue . There will be another stable/bull day of the week perhaps will extend till Friday?

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 27 2011, 07:31 AM

thanks for the tinker, cleared my blurriness .

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Added on October 27, 2011, 2:25 pmWill still stick to certain stocks, betting on rally till Friday perhaps >40 cents increment - finger crossed.....gulp...shud be fine with new debt deal reached, 50% haircut?

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 27 2011, 04:15 PM

yeah..Greece is lucky by spending every $1 and only pays back 50 cents each, mr. papandreou lucky you and citizens.

China indirectly will be pushed to buy more bonds, the European crisis is hurting their productivity. This round, I think they will buy the France and/or German's bond and/or buying up companies with hi-technologies in exchange.


wishfully the rally will last till tomorrow.....!

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 27 2011, 09:55 PM

agree with you that many banks will have to sacrifice. German, France and UK will have the biggest cut in absolute value term followed by other countries. Scroll till bottom of the following link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14239794

however and again all these banks are interlinked with each other, actual may varies vastly from the chart given  .

i also don't want lar.... to pay 100% then get back only 50% but now it's more like "social obligation" to put it in polite manner to prevent a global meltdown or to be exact is "they hold the global economy at hostage" - don't bailout me ar...I'll drag all of you together leh.....

Quite similar incident happened during the debt ceiling crisis and downgrade in US around August, the Asia i.e. China inclusive will still have to keep buying their Treasury due to:

1) No where to park their huge surpluses.

2) Disallowed US to default where they can't get their money back and possible backfire by hurting the American economy and demand for Chinese exports.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/09/markets/bo...uries/index.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/asia-keep-buying-us-...-112058669.html

even with the known possibilities that US will print more money i.e. QE3 which will indefinitely reduce the credits worth . The Greece is very fortunate, as you said before Italy and Spain might also want...

I really hope that M'sia will not go down into such situation where we'll be held hostage due to the government incompetency . Idris Jala said we might go bankrupt in 2019. "We will achieve developed nation by 2020 but before that we must bankrupt first a year before" - a common joke among news readers.

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 27 2011, 11:51 PM

i hv read couple of your replies and you did give many sounds advices backed by numbers, mind to share on where to start on proper chart analysis? a.k.a technical analysis? from scratch...really want a put some effort on this rather than just banking on sentiments. Any recommendation ?

other sifu, need you feedback as well .

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 28 2011, 02:35 PM

*deleted*

This post has been edited by countdown: Oct 28 2011, 10:43 PM

calling for referendum after what all has been done for you?


This post has been edited by countdown: Nov 1 2011, 09:03 PM

went in yesterday with bet on high...hopefully the rally will last till tmw, unless crazy surprise from Papandreou ...please at least >50 cents gain.......(gulp and finger crossed).....

and thanks for danmooncake foresight...

This post has been edited by countdown: Nov 3 2011, 08:03 PM

Short-selling lifted?

Reference:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14500731

This post has been edited by countdown: Nov 3 2011, 11:08 PM

tks for the input .

I had just TT'ed some money into my MB Trading account. Fill in the Maybank TT form accordingly and hand them to the counter, pls remember if the amount is more than RM10k equivalent, you hv to TT from your home branch account, if not generally they won't allow you to do so, unless special customers perhaps like premier, vip and etc...

Following is an example of TT'ing into MB Trading which I would say not much difference with OptionXpress.

Their company name "Penson Financial Services, Inc" which has an account with JP Morgan (066-6-00030). Leave a remarks especially ur name and acct number with them. When you TT'ed into their JP Morgan account, internally they will channel the funds into your individual account given by them. 066-6-00030 is a master/general account of MB Trading.

Beneficiary's particulars:

Penson Financial Services, Inc.
Add: 1700 Pacific Ave., Ste 1400, Dallas, TX 75201
Phone: 214-765-1510

Beneficiary's bank particulars:

JP Morgan Chase
277 Park Ave
New York, New York 10172
(212) 623-1636
ABA/routing number for JP Morgan Chase: 021000021
Account No: 066-6-00030
SWIFT number: CHASUS33.

Further credit to:
Name: "your name"
Acct no: "your individual account number"

------------------------------------

hope this helps... cheers,

This post has been edited by countdown: Nov 18 2011, 01:39 AM

Foreigners like us, capital gain and dividend made from US trading not taxable in US ?

This post has been edited by countdown: Apr 26 2012, 11:09 PM

thanks for your input. I got caught at 9.53 (330 units) for BAC . Still not good at data analysis...newbie....learning

This post has been edited by countdown: Apr 27 2012, 12:01 PM

Planning to Long PUT of DIA expiration @ Mar 13. Planning to close position 2-3 days before showdown of Fiscal Cliff 2 or 60-80% profit hits.

Wish to profit from both vega long (currently considerable low based on VXD) and delta short.

This post has been edited by countdown: Jan 5 2013, 01:26 AM

waiting for earnings announcement.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks...3-01-08-9913644

This post has been edited by countdown: Jan 8 2013, 11:40 PM