No problem. I think the old commission rates don't apply with IBKR anymore, so it's fine.

The funny names are exchanges actually:

EBS is the actual Swiss Stock Exchange (Swiss Electronic Bourse), run by SIX.

By the way, just curious what Swiss stocks did you buy last year? Nestle? Roche? Novartis?

You can't claim withholding tax from another country.. only can do so if you're a citizen of that country. Same like Malaysians how we file income tax and claim back those extra paid %.

This applies to US stocks as well with 30% withholding tax for dividends.

Yes, I have shown you the pwc link, you CAN claim back 20% if you are a Malaysian tax resident. Just download the Snapform Viewer program and "form 60" and fill it up. Mail it to Switzerland and wait for money to return to the bank account you stated in the form.

Note that you need to pay for the mailing from Malaysia all the way to Switzerland, so if the dividends to be claimed back is less than the mailing package, DO NOT reclaim any dividend as you will lose more.

Don't forget about such frictional cost in reclaiming taxes. It's marginal benefit and marginal cost that matters here, not the absolute amount.

So, in other words, you won't get back 20% but a bit less than that.

Nice information bomb! Basically for us (retail investors), we should forget about level 1 ADRs because we can only trade lvl2+ on IBKR. Aside from that, I see no difference between 2 and 3 based on Investopedia, it's basically the higher the level, the better (i.e. stable).

I did enable fractional shares at one point -- I bought some dividend stocks and got some payouts, but none of them were reinvested. I didn't find out why though....

Regarding the Wise route, I think I'll need to crunch some numbers to see if it's worth the hassle. It's exchange rate for MYR-SGD has been losing out to other fintechs for a very long time now, I can theoretically get more SGD and just do a spot rate conversion in IBKR with minimal commission.
...Say if I want to fund my account with CHF directly, all I need to do in IBKR is to change default currency to SGD, and then be prepared to answer their question about the Wise transfer, am I right?

---
I entered NESN at about 100CHF, yes yes I was pretty lucky about that haha.
Mine is actually weighing very heavily on my portfolio because I have yet to diversify much, I have 5ish stocks on me, each from a lump sum purchase so you can imagine my weightage

Too bad it is not accepting HKD now. 

Luckily I buy with small amount for long term.

iirc... eqqq is distributing... op wants accumulating...

agree, I went and bought some SG REITs right after 2nd day of CNY, then suddenly prices drop like few %. If know earlier would have waited then come in to buy. Sometimes holding for a few days is better.. especially right after 2 days CNY holiday break at the SG stock market.

Morning and evenings are bad times to buy, as that's when many desperate buyers. If sell then it is good time. Middle of the month usually market will cool down also, as people wait for their next salary/income to invest.. most are broke that time.

Next drop for US likely in March this year, as Fed already hinted they might increase interest rates once again. Now stocks are not rallying yet as many are still in red. Good time if you want to accumulate stocks at discount.. but nobody know if they will drop further. Feds might increase multiple times interest rates just to combat inflation @US. What happens in US will affect the rest of the world's stock market.

Unilever results:

I believed in buying the best and not 2nd class or competitor. Always have been and will always continue.

i should write uk is better than us... less tax

...updated

UK is inheritance tax

keep < 60k is not an option

any cash with us broker is counted for estate tax... with uk broker is not

us law say CASH in us bank is not counted... CASH in broker account is counted... afaik, there is no distinction to currencies... whilst it does distinguish between us stocks and non-us stocks, so this omission probably imply foreign cash is also counted...because they cant be so stupid right?

you're trying to make a case based on CASH in us banks is not counted, therefore cash kept by ibkr usa, especially in foreign currencies in foreign countries should especially not be counted, because you sent in sgd to a singapore bank or eur to a europe bank...and not usd to us bank... imho, you sent it to ibkr usa and is now under their custodianship... where they keep it is immaterial...

anyways i dunno for sure... best to contact cs or tax lawyer to ask the question... with this said, ibkr uk better than ibkr us is still correct

you are making an assumption that all foreign currencies under ibkr will be kept in their respective country... and any currency conversion means they must also make a cross border transaction... I doubt this to be the case... but fact is we don't know...

let's just focus on usd... us law says usd held by us broker is us estate taxable... you just need to check if usd held by uk broker is it the same...

So far for US based stock then ibkr has the lowest fee to non usa citizen and has no more inactivity fee.

Others then you might need to check its fee with other broker.

Choose the tiered fee if low trading volume and buying USA stocks as what I understand 👀

Yep, when I want to but for now. I prefer to keep under 1 broker for international for now.

New arrivals in my library today (published in 2021), very relevant to your question:





I have the PDF softcopy (you can find it online too), can't share here due to copyrights reason. (PM if you need it for self-reading.)

Written by a former Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley investment-banker-turn-professor at Columbia Business School, the book introduces "platform economics" and dissect the business models of FAANG and Microsoft (light touch).

Hope you find it interesting.

Pretty sure we'll bailed out before it does. but from now to retire still quite a long way. So i believed it's better to invest in growth stock. But i do keep a portion of my portfolio (currently still large portion) at Bursa on Maybank, and some other dividend stock. If, for whatever reason at least those money is easily cash out and transfer to your bank than to wait for IBKR. Can IBKR Transfer to Local bank using Wise?