Don't miss the forest for the trees and focus on commission only.  Become penny wise pound foolish. Just use smart routing and let IBKR handle everything. Keep your life simple.

Looks like I need to have foreign account in order to transfer the money. Thanks for the feedback

It’s just a 1 off thingy (quite a big amount). I will research more and see

Thanks. I suppose we use it often enough, we get used to it.
BTW, I did my first trade in the HK Exchange. Is it advisable to convert to HKD? And, am I correct to assume, if I do not convert, I be using their margin facility at approx 1.60% pa. This question on forex conversion may have been asked numerous times, so I apologize if I did not RTFF. Too many pages.

The margin will never be erased unless you deposit new money in. As long as your account continue to be negative, you will keep incurring interest until one fine day where they will automatic liquidate your shares without notification.

now IBKR seems to be able to buy BTC

u can search BTC

i didnt really trade but it is there

Hello guys, I m using Instarem to do forex (myr to sgd), but recently i wish to convert some sgd back to myr and i notice Instarem is not allow me to do so.... is this because initially i have registerd myself as Malaysian??

See TOS reply.
If you want to bring SGD back to Malaysia you only have 2 option
1) wise (previously known as transferwise)
2) CIMB sg (rates are as good as wise)

If you are working in sg, you have more options.

I have checked. Login to wise, select sending SGD, receiving RM. It can go through. I did not complete the process hence unsure of exact steps.

I thought the OP was asking withdrawal from SGD bank to MYR bank. In that case, with Wise or CIMB SG -> CIMB MY. IB directly to wise never heard before. No idea about that. With global account should be fine.

Just know Sunway is in currency exchange 
I just did a quick check, MYR -> SGD rate is attractive, Even better than Wise & Instarem with discount applied! 
But I cant see the option of SGD -> MYR tho

Eh Sunway Money looks cheaper than Wise. Didn't realize that, can get additional 20 SGD for a 30k MYR transfer to SG bank, some 0.2% extra. Right now I think promotion for Sunway Money. Not sure when it ends.

You didn't know? I thought you are the one who found them.

lol did I?

I tried registering, went to Sunway Carnival to do manual verification but no such "Sunway Kiosk" exists. e-KYC cannot be done on my phone for some reason I don't know.

I guess I will just stick to Wise and Instarem for now.

No lah, back then no such advertisement mah. All tiang just show Setara 5 star rating from Sunway U and Sunway College.

chabo aside. Got something serious to ask you.

From your experience in buying US shares, any configuration you think need to change on SMART or you just use the default SMART setting? Or you think certain exchanges are better?

Does anyone know about WHT treatment on sponsored ADS/ADRs? TSMC dividend is subject to a 21% WHT by Taiwan, is it still subject to a further 30% WHT by US IRS?

https://investor.tsmc.com/english/faq

I Googled around and confirm that US and Taiwan has no tax treaty, but no information is found for the 30% US WHT for foreign (non-resident) investors. 

Thanks for info.

Btw, dividend witholding tax doesn't matter to me so I don't care how much dividend they want to cut.
1. You can bypass dividend with hodling tax by selling covered call on your stock (once you reach 100 shares)
2. Options are not tax as it's counted as capital gain under US. We as non us citizen doesn't get taxed on capital gains.

That's the beauty of options.
1. Let you bypass dividend with holding tax.
2. Let you bypass companies which either pay peanut dividend or nil and basically free to invest in any companies.
3. Generate more money than dividends alone.

That's why nowadays I don't bother if company pay dividend or not. Or How much is the dividend tax rate. Least one thing to look up. More time for myself.

No money to do covered call? Slowly buy shares every month or whenever you have cash until reach 100. Focus on one company at a time. I couldn't do covered call initially but I workup slow and steady. Sell those low paying dividend stock and dump the money into the stocks I want to do covered call.

I don't trade options. I use options as a way to bypass dividend witholding tax and generate my own DIY dividends.

I am buy and hold guy since I started. Still am.

Well trade here for me means buy and sell. If I am not selling and just holding then it's just buy and hold.

Yup. Which majority of it expires worthless like 90%+ for me.

Yes I still pay the dividend tax. But difference here is
1. I can get back more or equal of the tax I paid which cancel each other out and most of the time surplus of the tax I paid which indirectly means I get refund on my dividend tax + more. Lol.

Anyway is just how you look at it that way. I choose to look at it as
1. Way to bypass dividend tax/get refund for more fun way to invest. Makes it feel nicer for me anyway that my money is being returned. Haha..

Anyway it's my own view and not official way.