Hi rjb123, Since you have opened a TD Ameritrade Account as non us resident, do they provide you the TD Ameritrade Visa Debit Card?

Thanks

I tried, but that's only for US residents I believe. Didn't need it anyway, already have a USD debit card which I've never used

Folks,

Somebody want to a dumped down simplified step to this approach.

1) Save 3 to 6 months of expenses as Emergency Fund.

2) Save at least USD $2,000

3) Use the USD $2,000 to open an US Brokerage A/C

4) Use USD $1,000 to buy BND and USD $1,000 to buy VT. We are using 50/50 ratio

5) Save USD $2,000.

6) Transfer the money to US brokerage A/C.

7) Use the USD $2,000 to buy BND and VT. Buy them at different amount so that they stay at 50/50.

For example, if BND worth $250 and VT worth 750, use the new $2,000 to buy $1,250 of BND and $750 of VT. You will ended up with $1,500 of BND and $1,500 of VT.

8) Go back to (5)

You can continue this forever. After your portfolio reach USD $10K, you may want to do annual re-balancing. That means you sell either sell BND to buy VT or sell VT to buy BND. Basically, you sell whoever is more than 50% of your portfoli to buy whoever is less than 50% of your portfolio. To save cost, if the difference is less than 2K, do nothing.

Dreamer

Now, i think we need at least 1 year, no?

endau02,

1) Probably, yes since the inflation rate between now and end of the next year will be very high.

2) Probably prudent for people to keep some of their emergency in Singapore or foreign A/C

Dreamer

how US brokerage work?

let take Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF @ USD82.17

if the brokerage is $0.01 commision per share, so I buy 10 share BND
Note: Note min brokerage fee is USD 0.01

USD82.17 x 100 =USD 821.70

Total cost + commision = USD 821.70 + $0.10 = USD 821.80 ?

Am I correct? Is there any other fee from gov?

MNet,

Most US brokerage charge a fixed price per trade (buy or sell) up to 5,000 shares. There is no other fee. For example, if TDAM charge $10 per trade, the total cost will be 10 x $82.17+ $10 = $831.70

To minimize the cost, each trade should be around USD $1,000 or higher.

Dreamer

i'm using placetrade min $1.5

http://www.us.placetrade.com/index.php/low...ommissions-fees

At TD Ameritrade, which account did you guys chose? Joint tenant WROS (with rights of survivorship) or Traditional IRA?

IRA is for US citizen bro

why u chose TD ah?

I am new to all this. Trying find out how to open a US account to buy ETF.

TD was mentioned by dreamer the TS , low maintenance fees suit me fine.

When i entered the TD website to open the account, i was stucked when asked about which account
to choose. Option for individual - i think joint account would suit me.
Then there is option for a retirement account - save for retirement 10 years later is my aim.


I didnt know IRA only for US citizen,
For working malaysian paying 26% income tax here, which account would u recommend?

Let take Vanguard FTSE All Wd Ex US Small Cap ETF @ $110.28/share

I would suggest

1. If u trade less that 1000 unit of share go for PlaceTrade as commission is $0.01/share with minumum $1.5
http://www.us.placetrade.com/index.php/low...ommissions-fees

2. merrilledge if trade more than 1000 unit of share
http://www.merrilledge.com/why-merrill-edg...pagenav=pricing

for those investing in foreign shares, arent the TT fees prohibitive, ie eat up quite a big % of your trading value?

BTW, TD has commission free trades on many ETFs - no fees for buying, only a "fine" if holding for less than a certain amount of time (2/3 months? I'm not sure)

TT fee isn't much. Say overall, it may cost $50 USD as most for a transfer - if you transfer $1000 that's $50 (5%), if you transfer $10000 that's 0.5%, if $20000 that's 0.25%.

So far if I transferred in - either $10K or $20k, the % of TT fees is less than the SC I'd pay if I was buying funds in Malaysia

Just choose the standard account type, that'll do just fine

The IRA / 401K stuff is just for US citizens, not foreigners

Thanks Dreamer. I read the entire thread and this step by step guide is helpful. Now I gotta read more background material before moving forward.

I have a question (which I didn't find in earlier posts) - what is the generally recommended percentage of total investment portfolio to be dedicated to ETFs?

I'm making baby steps in investing - 70% of my money is in PNB fixed rate funds, 30% in local FDs. I don't have sufficient knowledge of the stock market right now to enter there, and property seems costly to enter and relatively hard to get out of. Thus the reason for my interest in ETFs.

20k in RM? I thought max we can TT per day is 10k?

online max RM10K /day
at counter until RM50K then they may ask some Qs

TT from counter, outbound fees also RM10?

langstrasse,

90+% of my investment is in this. But, since I am US resident, I invest on mutual fund directly instead of ETF.

<<70% of my money is in PNB fixed rate funds, >>

You have too much money tied up in a single country.

Dreamer