Only Nr 2 at present.

My income is in USD or GBP so I can either deposit GBP from a UK account (fee free) or from USD which costs around $50 as a round trip.

SGD is an option but I'd have to buy SGD first so not really convenient at the moment!

Thanks. Hansel I think you have your answer?

Right,... so rjb123 deposits GBP notes into IB from his UK Account which is free, since that account is based in the UK (whose natural currency is the GBP), but if he deposits USD into that account, he will have to pay USD50 fee, because the USD would then be foreign currency in the UK,... Is my understanding correct ?

Well he did said it's cheaper to fund account using SGD than using RM. Let's wait for his reply.

As long as IB has a local account where you're depositing funds you can avoid the bank charges - with USD it isn't avoidable unless you have a bank account in the US which should allow you to do I think it's called ACH deposit.

Ie. GBP account in UK to IB UK Account = Free, SGD account in SG to IB SGD Account = Free

As SGD is freely tradeable, you can convert from SGD to USD with pretty much no spread inside IB. Of course you have to get SGD first .. converting from RM is never great as you have to change from RM in Malaysia before anything else!

Tq rjb123,....

Pertaining to the above, I would understand you would be able to transfer over funds from a Sgp bank acct in SGD into the IB SGD Acct,...

But my question is : are you able to give SGD cash by hand to the IB employees at the IB Office in Sgp to be deposited into your IB SGD trading acct ?

Why do you want give by cash when one can transfer into their account? Caah in Singapore is big red flag especially if it's a lot.

Guess you can email them and asked.

This post has been edited by Ramjade: Jan 11 2017, 10:19 AM

I haven't tried this but I'm 99.99% sure that no broker would accept a direct cash deposit. They don't even accept transfers from accounts in a different name.

YES,... bro,... all my doubts are cleared. Your second sentence : They don't even accept transfers from accounts in a different name, happened after the 1MDB case started blowing-up,... yes, my private banker warned me of this !!!

In some past postings when a forummer said to me,... capital controls has been in existence even before 1MDB started, yes, I would agree,.. but back then,...before the 1MDB fiasco started, your second sentence has not been enforced yet !

After that 1MDB case blew up, MORE enforcements were put in place,... and more restrictions against capital movement were enforced,... That's why I said,... thanks to 1MDB. Now I/we am/are heavily inconvenienced.

I meant the deposits to IB - IB won't accept deposits from any account not in your own name - this has been in place for everyone, not just accounts / individuals in Malaysia.

Bro,... you really don't get my msg's,... it's okay, if really one can learn so fast,.. then the concept of time needed to build experience does not qualify anymore. anymore,...

Bro,... I'll reply this subject topic one more time,... I'm aware this applies to everyone today,... but if you read my writing earlier,.. I'm not talking about this ruling being applied to whom,... but I was talking abt this ruling being started to be enforced since when,...

Anyway,... I'd like to reiterate here,... the point that I'd like to make here is if one can indeed find a bank which can accept foreign currency notes being deposited in without charges (just like DBS earlier), it really saves a lot of cost in our investing plans. But DBS has closed her doors. Hopefully the other bank can open her doors now.

I am thinking of the Citibank approach:

1. open MY Citibank account
2. open SG Citibank account
3. move fund around using the "global fund transfer"

anyone try this before?

Same approach as using HSBC Premier Global View really - but still at mercy of the bank exchange rates.

Not sure how difficult / easy it is to open Citibank SG account, never tried.

If MYR was openly traded life would be much easier (ie. more competitive exchange rates!)

No I don't. Please teach.
The reason I am saying Singapore won't accept cash is because of money laundering. Heck. Even for Philips, they told me to deposit cash, need to head to their HQ.
Developed countries don't use cash because it's untraceable which makes it a good stuff for money laundering and criminal activities.

So since I assume you want to pay them in huge cash, of course they won't accept. Of course they will ask you to bank in.

Hi all,

I have read through this thread from page one till the last page. I am rather new at investing and may not be very familiar with certain concepts, so I apologize in advance since I'll be needing some guidance in my understanding.

For simplicity, the following will be my assumptions:
1. Trade ETF through TDAA
2. Commission fee of USD10.65 per trade
3. TT fee of USD50
4. MYR/USD = 4.5
5. Purchasing VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares

With the above assumptions, say if I have the required USD3,500 deposit to open the account, that would mean I will need:
(USD3,500+USD50) x 4.5 = MYR15,975 --- [50/3550*100=1.4%]

With the initial USD3,500 in my TDAA account, I purchase 29 shares ot VTI at USD116.68 each:
USD116.68 x 29 + USD10.65= USD3,394.37; Balance in account: USD105.63 --- [10.65/3394.37*100=0.31]

After that, assume that I am able to allocate up to MYR10,000 in a year to purchase additional shares, I would have:
MYR10,000/4.5 - USD50 = USD2,172 --- [50/2222*100=2.25%]

Purchase additional shares:
USD116.68*19 + USD10.65 = USD2227.57; Balance in account: USD50.06 --- [10.65/2227.57*100=0.47%]

Questions:
1. So does this mean that just from TT charges, commission fee and the VTI expense ratio, I would have actually lost upfront a total of roughly:
First purchase: 1.76% (1.4%+0.31%+0.05%)
Second purchase: 2.77% (2.25%+0.47%+0.05%)
I do understand that with larger investment sum, the percentage will drop further and vice versa.
2. Say if I bought an Equity and Bond fund, does that count as two separate trade, incurring 2 x USD10.65 commission fee, thus further increasing the percentage that I had calculated earlier?
3. Does the commission fee also be charged when selling or re-balancing? I suppose any selling of one fund and buying another would be considered as additional trades and the commission fee would be charged separately for each transaction. Is my understanding correct? Was reading up on another thread by Dreamer - Asset Allocation Investing using US ETF, Basic approach to asset Allocation ETF

I am not sure if my calculations are correct so feel free to correct me if they are wrong. Like I mentioned, I'm here to learn from more experienced people around here since I'm rather new to all this and am still am unfamiliar with some of the concepts.

While waiting for rjb123,

1. Trading via TDAA will eat your profit faster than anything. If you are trading, go for IB. If you are holding, I think TDAA is ok.
3. Where did you get TT fees of USD50? Most banks charge RM10/TT
5. By purchasing that ETF, you will kena 30% tax on your profit by the US. Better to go the LSE way and buy Ireland domiciled ETF which mirror the US market which will cost 15% tax on profit only. Instead of 30%

To be honest, I don't think RM10k/year is suitable for ETFs. For cost effective, IMHO, one should have at least RM30k/year for ETFs. That's just my opinions.

This post has been edited by Ramjade: Jan 20 2017, 08:28 AM

er.. TDAA fler here who does ETFs, other stocks like CVX HCP RSX & options on ETFs & stocks.

Further feedback/sharing on the items above:
1. It depends.. but generally spot on.
2. TT fees - there are the sending local charges (if any) + US side receiving charges, usually about USD20 per transaction, regardless of amount.
5. For US - there's no capital gains tax but there is withholding tax of 30% on dividends for NRAs - non-resident aliens. Non-resident = not in US lor + aliens = not orang Trump

Bottom line - MYR10K per year & doing US ETFs?
A. heheh - IMHO, best to start with local or SGX first.
Learn value investing (whatever value is to U), Build up $ and when one can cough up >=USD5K pa to invest consistently, then it becomes more worthwhile to get into US markets.

B. Learn how to juice your US stock investments with selling options WHILE "getting there".

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: Jan 20 2017, 08:51 AM

rm10k is too small, too costly for trading foreign stocks, using local or foreign brokers.

save up >usd10k first.

1. It's just an assumption for me to get a feel of the numbers. Whether it's tdaa or ib I'll just need to adjust the numbers to reflect accordingly.
3. I got that value from the first post where it's stayed that roughly the total tt charges would be around usd 50. That rm10 is just charges by local banks. I would assume that there might be some charges by receiving and intermediate banks in us.
5. I thought as nra, were eligible to get a 15% deduction on the wt if we fill up some form by every April? Well,I suppose that is still some extra work compared to buying Ireland domiciled etf.

Tbh, 30k would be close to what i earn yearly. I supposed us etf is just out of my reach atm.

Thanks for your feedback.