I am going to start using "Your mom's a filthy day trader" as an insult moving forward

You should open IBKR directly now, as IBKR offers the most and best features, even if you apply through TSG you will quickly find yourself wanting to go through the delinking process.

I don't see why it would be in anyway different compared to CIMB SG

Either one only, you can't be either. I just use margin account but don't use the leverage. Much easier for day to day usage.

Ah, to grossly simplify it, the primary benefit of margin account is that you can borrow money from IBKR using your stocks/net asset as collateral. e.g. you own 1000 USD worth of $MSFT, you can use that as collateral to get an extra 500~1000USD worth of buying power. That's called leveraging.

But if you enable margin account, but don't actually spend money you don't have and treat it as a cash account, you will get benefits such as not needing to wait for settlement, e.g. waiting for deposits to clear, waiting your stocks sold to settle before withdrawing it or buying other stocks, etc.

Haha, why are you holding out? You are going to invest through this platform, and will be trusting them with your money long term, funding now and funding next week makes no meaningful difference if you lack trust now.

With their current status, god knows how long an unfunded account will need to be approved, better just fund it IMO.

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/tradi...argin-rates.php

For margins, just a matter of negative balances for interest chargeable. They post it every 3rd day of the month.


There is a calculator for borrow and short sale here https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=46377&p=m

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Mar 5 2022, 01:38 AM

Link to apps for those that are lazy: https://globaltrader.interactivebrokers.com/en/home.php

Seems like they are really shotgunning their approach of new investor. IBKR Impact just came out within the last 6 months.

Edit: tried it, just recoloured Impact, still absolutely terrible, can't see leverage ratio and stock dont even have axis labelled.

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Mar 9 2022, 11:11 PM

It's the same system just different frontend, I think, this was the case for Impact and this app for me too. I don't think free US trades is mentioned anywhere, you sure?

It'll depend on your deposit route, but try to keep your total transaction fee under 1% (0.5% ideally for me) - if you deposit and convert RM200 every month, you are going to lose quite a bit of fixed cost every month (2USD fixed currency conversion fee at IBKR for SGD->USD, Wise conversion fee for MYR->SGD or MYR->USD is around RM4 for RM200). Might wanna just hold onto it and deposit in longer interval (bimonthly, quarterly?) and later on, use low amount of margin (1.2x or below) to smooth out the buy interval if needed.

Losing 9% (MYR->(WISE)->SGD->(IBKR FX)->USD) or 2% (MYR->(WISE)->USD) of your deposit before you do anything is pretty bad.

The minimum deposit amount using the cheapest route at low volume would be MYR->(WISE)->USD at RM400 per deposit (~1% cost of conversion + 0.35USD for US stock/~2USD for LSE stock purchase) - if you buy Irish domiciled ETFs and stocks, MYR1200 per deposit via the MYR-USD route would be optimal-ish I guess? In that case I would suggest buying US-domiciled equivalent and forgo the 15% withholding tax gain until you decide to commit more per month in the future to cut down on purchase cost.

But don't overthink it too much either - sometimes being invested is the important part. There is a lot of nuance to this, so you can always come back and ask here with reference to what ticker you would be buying.

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Mar 17 2022, 11:03 PM

Anyone have experience selling box spread for low interest loans?

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8NSKMMDXS8g...slightly-faster

Yes, but the first hour of market open is generally volatile and I personally avoid it, and while VUAA is an Ireland domiciled fund traded on LSE, all it's underlying asset is actually US, so I'd personally recommend you to put your order out after ~11pm Malaysia time, where VUAA will have better tracked price.

Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 2 2022, 01:25 PM

Okay so, I am going to use some likely wrong words here and poorly explain it, so the resident stock sifus may want to correct me:

You are buying an ETF, which is a basket of stocks. So it has two values, a Market Value (The value of the ticker, the price you buy and sell it) and Net Asset Value, which is the sum of all the stock value under the ETF.

Market Value is determined by the traders but mostly market markers (they provide liquidity to anchor the price close to NAV) while the underlying stocks value is determined by traders who trade them. Hence inevitably, there will be difference in these values, we call them Premium and Discounts (e.g. SP500 all share prices total up for 500 for example, but the ETF currently is trading at 480, so you got a $20 discount if you bought it at that time)
Now, market maker try to keep these value as close as possible, to minimize what we call tracking errors.

Further reading: https://www.vanguardmexico.com/en/learn/exp...-discounts-work

So, when you buy VUAA when US market is not open, you are exposed to tracking error - the price you are paying, may not accurately reflect the real value of the underlying stocks. This could be good, could be bad, could mean nothing. It's just something to keep in mind.

You can see the tracking error by checking the fund's page NAV information, and overall tracking error reported in the fund's annual report usually.



This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 2 2022, 02:20 PM

If it helps, I don't keep cash outside of some spending money and emergency fund. So I don't maintain a "cash position" so to say. I don't really time the market and just do regular DCA, but if there's a really good deal and I know I can afford it, I'll buy it with margin with a personal tolerance of up to 1.25x leverage and pay it off with my upcoming income.

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 8 2022, 12:34 PM

For those who are concerned:

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 12 2022, 02:08 AM

I'll just crosspost my answer to this question from Bogleheads Local Chapter [Malaysia Edisi]

(VUAA is equivalent to CSPX)

As for DCA amount, I recommend that you keep your total transaction cost (fees and commissions) under 1% or ideally 0.5%.

E.g. If it cost you 1.7USD IBKR commission, 2USD forex fee, then your DCA amount should ideally be no lower than 740USD (~RM3000) or 370USD (~RM1500).

You will find that if you use Wise to send USD directly, your route fees has a minimum of ~0.5%, so keep that in mind.

With these info in mind, it'll still be up to you to decide how much fees is acceptable for you, and what is the balance between tracking the up and downs of the market vs saving fees. (e.g. DCA monthly, quarterly, annually, etc)

All very valid points. Be mindful of what you buy and more importantly why. Don't add a ticker to your portfolio just because someone else did.

Buying pure SP500, QQQ, VWRA is all fine - over 30-40 years, they will all give you ample returns with the cyclic nature of the market. I always joke about how if one had the conviction to properly hold what they buy, over 30 years, a person buying nothing but Maybank at mediocre prices and fees will probably outperform most investors who duck in and out of market, switch funds, or pay 2+% to fund managers just to trade sideways.

Nope, full shares only.

Appreciate the sharing but perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to hide the image behind a spoiler tag or just link them so people who are just scrolling by don't get hit by a few massive file size images forcefully.

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 19 2022, 03:00 PM