Not sure if it is a good place to mention here. TDAmeritrade Asia ask for a foreign tax identification number in the W8-BEN form, but I do not have any tax number as of now.

Can I just leave it blank first then submit the application?

Okay then thanks.

Ah, I see then. Thanks for the clarification.

Nope, I do not have any income tax, still a student.

I guess now I am permitted to talk about US markets now that my account is approved, yes!

In the meantime, trading down some UVXY put options. Still monitoring the situation on equities market since the Dow kept coming back up, seriously what is going on?

TDAmeritrade or thinkorswim. Good platform actually, save for the brokerage cost...

Yeah, long term buying power is very important. But of course, how investors stand the gyrations do matter in this case.

And finally someone took notice of my siggy.

Sad to say, it happens and if one wants to win, there you have it. Research materials are out-dated at this point I must say.

Looks like Trump is doing well a little bit of a good job. Well, erm, too untimely for me to say this now.

The short term effect has already been priced in.

Unless she pulls off something unexpectedly terrible, it will most likely affect long term.

You see the problem is, in ETF, investors, traders are charged with the expense ratio whereas for some index fund managers, for every year or entry/exit, one is charged around 2 percent. And the worst part is that even if one is to profit, they may charge around 10 to 20 percent every year for every profitable year. Loss-making, still have to pay that 2 percent.

With thousands of ETFs on the market, people prefer to just move to ETFs from index funds though some remain but probably the ones whom fund managers are willing to sacrifice for lower profit, investment fees.

And probably for US, is the reason why some brokers can charge a lower fee than here. Even some brokers if I were to phone in is a flat rate of $45 versus say 0.7% here which for a million dollar transaction will definitely cost more than in Malaysia/Singapore than the US. But I am not sure if those people doing the phone assisted orders are the dealer reps or just another customer service people. Probably still there but not as many as before...

Quite an interesting read given a recent increase in volatility and more uncertainties appearing on the news more frequently...

https://www.investing.com/analysis/the-s-p-...gence-200182943

Wait, I thought markets are closed for Good Friday?

This post has been edited by ILoveLalat.net: Apr 14 2017, 08:53 PM

Anyone here long UVXY? I have been noticing that this stock market has been very quiet ever since Trump win. Something not right?

Yup, 300% agree with you on what you said.

For me personally, the volatility on the VIX futures is so low that I think just for these next few days, it should be worth the trade. Going to offload maybe tonight or tomorrow.

Never ever to consider this as "investment" as SVXY seems to be more stable over the last few years.

Market drop is finally happening, bear trap or this is the beginning of the end? Place your bets here!

For starters, I'll be longing SPY options. See if I'm wrong...

Yup, has always been on that. But now the problem is recently, the stock market has been "really predictable", say a plunge of 0.7 percent or more, can just buy calls and watch one's well increase.

So I woke up this morning, what the flippin heck, expected! From 55, my call jump to 97. It is been too predictable that it would rebound back on this scale. Same goes the way, no wonder this market is really fake.

Yeah, think it's due to contango. The ETF has been much of a drag lately cause the NAV is a positive 20 cent today from down 7 cent on the official close.

I hated the VXX, particularly that it's really fake.

This post has been edited by ILoveLalat.net: May 12 2017, 08:01 AM

Amusing that with the cyber attacks ongoing, the market is very unfazed about it. Looks quite decent to short hmm...

Sold off my SPY puts down 6 pips. Over because I could not make my order entry to Nasdaq permit-able. Got to enter C2 from now on.

US futures is rebounding as we speak, yet another false pullback on Trump's weakness? I am still not convinced that the market will go down any further over the next few weeks.

Market's in US today stayed resilient despite the problems plaguing in the UK.

It did affect market sentiment somehow. US futures were down 0.2 percent at one point but slowly rebound up. Even stocks were sold down all around the world.

I'll yell, "Hip, hip, horray!!".

So buy what now? SPY? SVXY? Time to long markets. At 50 percent, S&P could hit 3,000.