yeah - i'd stay with local or SG brokerage houses.

however please not that the dividends U receive may be "negative" if too small due to the extra charges for "Agents fees" management/transaction. If purely/mostly for capital growth/appreciation, then "no feel on that pain"

True also.

Now i started with us denominated share listed in Sgx as way to accumulate usd

Let me think over again based on what u said.

excellent point - newbies may not know this.

for local brokers handling FX, if u hv too few shares, reits or stocks, the fixed charges in processing can kill the dividend, become negative, a net charge to pay!

foreign brokers will not have that but tend to have monthly running charges and/or min deposits.

impt to understand the pros and cons of local vs foreign, fixed vs variable charges.

the choice is not always obvious - a matter of type of trades, frequency of trades and size of trades.

This post has been edited by AVFAN: Nov 18 2016, 01:38 PM

Agree with AVFAN, every investor uses each platform differently.

The only real way to make an informed decision is to write down a few months of trades and do the calculations based on that.

If one is buying regularly, then the options which are now out of reach because of min deposits etc they should be within reach not too long in the future

Anyone know of a local broker with fees that are near TDAA? Everyone seems to be charging a minimum of $25 over here. That's pretty painful.

Its depend on ur budget.
IB offer cheap min transaction cost.

There is no minimum deposit to able to trade for TDAA. $2500 is just a recommended initial deposit amount. Answer from TDAA livechat

Buying ETFs in malaysia is expensive (not talking about Malaysia index which is not worth) as most index are in other currency. The best way is open a Singapore account > open Interactive Broker > direct bank in SGD (they accept SGD) > then use IB exchange to exchange for the currency you want (people say their exchange rates are even better than money changer) > buy ETF you want from the respected market (recommended is Irish Domiciled ETFs to save cost).

Yes. There are 2 threads on ETFs.

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2843370
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3396549

But the bad thing about IB is USD10/months fee for inactivity unless you have USD100k with them then it's free. THe USD10/month will reduce if you carry out enough transaction to cover the fees.

So this thread will be the ABC on ETFs ?

I guess so.

Tested TDAA platform. Very confusing.

how to test ah?

TOS (Think or swim)?

If I'm honest since I transferred my TDAM holdings to TDAA I've logged in once and never put a trade through. I assumed the platform is the same

Yes. Think or swim.
Still learning how to use it..

In case anyone is interested - looks like another way to deposit without charges to IB can be through Citibank.

As USD funding is done to Citibank USA, if you have a Citibank USD account in Malaysia you should be able to transfer USD instantly without any charges.

Limits seem to be $12500 for normal account holders and $25000 for Citigold customers, can do it online too and not necessary to go to the branch.

Will give this a go and report back next week!

According to what I found on other forums Citi global transfer service doesn't work to institutional accounts.

Anyway, no harm in trying!

its for personal account only.
How to open citibank usd account?

You can just go to one of their branches and open - same as any other bank.

There's a fee though if your balance is under a certain amount.

boss, hows ur experience with citi??

Confirmed with RM - it isn't available for deposits to institutional accounts.

So you can still TT from Citi USD auto IB but normal TT charges apply. At least they have a decent limit ($25K I think) and can be done online unlike Maybank where I need to visit the branch