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Lately I got some cash in my Rakuten account and I think of buying US shares instead of Malaysia ones. I have a separate IBKR account and moving the funds over and in future moving back quite problematic. So would like advice from folks who traded in US shares using Rakuten.

I understand the difference from Rakuten and real IBKR as below:

1. Commission, Rakuten is capped at RM100 whereas IBKR is from a few dollars to 1x plus (depending on amount and the latter number of shares)
2. FX spread, for both Buy and Sell the difference of the Rakuten rate vs online rate is around 0.55%? I can only get a buy indicative conversion rate which is around 0.55%. Can I check for sell FX the spread is it also 0.55% or much more?
3. Rakuten charges stamp duty (or rather Malaysia Govt) at 0.15% capped at RM1000, whereas US side stamp duty is included in the commission calculation above.

Assuming point 2 is both around 0.55%, meaning the costs of trading via Rakuten is the extra stamp duty (still don't know why Malaysia govt tax US bought shares using IBKR anyway...), commission and the FX spread of around 1.1% to 1.5%.

Am I right? The advantages of using Rakuten of course is the convenience of settlement in Ringgit. And if something happens to you easier to claim money back. Via IBKR if not careful, you might be subjected to estate duty tax!

Anyway appreciate the gurus to provide some insight on the costs of trading US shares in Rakuten vs IBKR direct.

Read this:
https://www.facebook.com/1859173861029267/p...41780912768549/

This FB post doesn't answer my questions. I am more concern with the FX spread which only folks who traded and compared online rates can tell me.

It shows all relevant fees including what you mentioned in #1 and #3, and for additional and full details just go to Rakuten website under Fees page. For the daily buy and sell MYR/USD rate, since you don't have an account let me share today's rates FYI:

Buy @ 4.2550
Sell @ 4.2240
BNM ref @ 4.2328

Edited for typo.

This post has been edited by gooroojee: Apr 12 2022, 09:44 PM

Buying via rakuten is still traded in RM while USD just indicator only hence stamp duty

FX rate for sure via Rakuten is at least 1.3% and above depending

For those frequent trader who do more than 5 trades weekly it is not worth it but if you are long and hold then the spread doesn’t really matter in the end

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This post has been edited by Rakuten Trade: Apr 26 2022, 12:46 PM

Does Rakuten plan to create a new mobile apps or change a new mobile platform? Why the design is like so outdated for current iSPEED.my platform

Does anyone know if ETF distribution is subject to 30%US tax?

haven't received my first distribution to verify but i'm 99% sure that the withholding tax (30%) will be deducted from the full dividend before they transfer to our cash account.

We buy 4.30 rm to 1 usd... afraid in future rm 3.50 to 1 usd...

We will lose conversion.

If lose capital ... plus lose conversion wow double loss..

Anyone enlighten..???

Of course can hold stock prevent conversion..

I am in similar position , started out with IBKR only and thinking about estate problem later on and also to simplify the process for my parents to invest , at last i chosed fsmone (IBKR still my main account) , 0.08% but no cap unlike rakuten at RM100 for US share , advantages are seperate USD account , slightly lower fees 0.08% for transaction between RM45000/RM50000 and RM125000 , and i like their cleaner interface much more . Main cons is no cap brokerage fee lets say after 5-10years the account roll to a much larger figure it makes a big difference . But for our case i decided to treat it as a future cash flow account so wont sell anything more than RM100000 at once anyways .

Forex spread after multiple tries :
IBKR (myr to sgd to usd) 0.48%-0.52% , (usd to sgd to myr) 0.68%
FSMone (myr to usd) 0.56-0.65% (averages 0.6%) , (usd to myr) 0.57%-0.63%

HLebroking (myr to usd) 0.46-0.5% (can be as low as 0.4% sometimes) , (usd to myr) 0.57-0.64% (fluctuate quite abit)
Rakuten (myr to usd) first try 1.3% few weeks later second look 0.5-0.6% (big gap so gave up trying) , no USD account auto convert all sold value back to MYR .

Moomoo (myr wise to sgd) 0.5% , (sgd to usd) another 0.34% unlike IBKR which charges flat fee USD2 on all sgd to usd transactions .
During withrawal (usd to sgd) assume same rate 0.34% , almost 0.68% extra fees compare to IBKR , I assume Tiger broker is the same .


Conclusion :
Wealth accumulation - IBKR
Wealth protection (estate) - Hlebroking / FSMone (other than the brokerage fee , the painful part is the 0.15% stamp duty fee , abit like paying for estate planning )

This post has been edited by Gatsby IT: May 10 2022, 07:30 PM

Thanks for the analysis, in the end I just use Rakuten for ease as I do not have fsm account. Surprised the fsm spread is so low, for Rakuten it was around 1.3% difference compared to XE rate. As my amount is huge so I am OK for the cap brokerage. More for the convenience.

Bro highly suggest if ur amount is huge consider Hlebroking , best spread either way . tho the fees is minimum USD25 but its based on 1 share 0.05 fee (so unless ure trading penny stock, 0.05usd per share is quite fair for share trading at USD100+) , not to mention convenience of depositing and withrawing , Hlebroking allows RM1M limit per day of deposit from its Hong Leong bank account . 1.3% vs 0.4% forex gap is really huge especially for larger figure , even after factor in brokerage cap of RM100 of Rakuten , for example :

Capital of RM1M , Target US share price at USD100 , u can buy around 2272 shares , 2272 share x 0.05usd per share ,
Hong Leong brokerage at USD113.63 (RM500 fee) , Rakuten fee is at RM100 max , saving of about RM400 . BUT !

Forex charge Hong Leong Broking RM1M x 0.4% about RM4k in forex charges , Rakuten 1.3% means the forex charges amount to RM13k (even at 0.6% its at RM6k) !!
So i think the max cap on brokerage dont really do much especially for larger transactions not just when buying , more so when selling / withdrawing . Imagine rolling this account to maybe higher 7 figure or 8 figure portfolio and paying huge forex charges when converting the currency , at that point brokerage fees not really that important (if using 0.05usd per share measure) .


**BTW sorry i kinda lost track this is rakuten thread , didnt mean to cause any harm .

This post has been edited by Gatsby IT: May 10 2022, 08:28 PM

Actually I just went to calculate based on the day I trade. Either using XE or BNM rate it is around 0.75%. My bad. Considering even if you use IBKR, it will be a min difference too. Thanks for your input, and I think people reading this thread can appreciate. I guess the main reason for me is that I use Rakuten for Bursa too. So really lazy to shop around even though the savings can be huge. Please note currency fluctuates all the time, today HLebroking might be lower tomorrow it might not be. And the rules change all the time. So I guess I will always lose out on the forex. The amount is too big to move around banks/brokerages.

In fact when the day I retire and sell all my portfolio, I will have a hard time to bring back to Malaysia without losing much on the forex. I don't like bank related brokerage, they always change rules and have funny charges. For the time being I will stick to one, ie Rakuten. Don't have much bullets left to invest anyways... haha.

No problem bro all the best 😁 bank related brokerage do tend to overcharge Abit tho haha .

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