Hi All, not sure if this is the right thread... I'm starting to look into affordable/cheap foreign brokers to trade foreign shares (mostly US for now, primarily ETF, passive investing) as I've already got access to Malaysia stocks (HLeBroking / Rakuten) & Hong Kong stocks (Fundsupermart @ Hong Kong) - and I've come to realize that both are only ideal for their respective local stocks and extremely expensive/terrible for US stocks

Looking into few options and seem like the most cost-friendly are either Tradestation Global or TD Ameritrade. Anyone here have experience with either/both of them?

Broker	Tradestation Global	TD Ameritrade
Stocks Commission	$1.5 per order	$0
Bond Commission	$7.5 per order	$0
Access to outside US	Yes	n/a
Transfer	3rd Party Transfer accepted (Transfer Wise etc.) [should be ok from here]	Only Account Holder's transfer (sos)
Minimum Balance	n/a	n/a
Minimum Initial Deposit	$1000	$3500
Withdrawal Fees	1 free per month ($10 thereafter)	$25 Wire Transfer
Capital Protection	approx. $110K USD	$500K USD

Also found this website that compares broker - not bad. Between TD Ameritrade and TradeStation Global both seems to be strong contender. There's also IBKR but the inactivity/minimum commissions are really oof

Dang - you're right, I didn't check the HK stock fees. FSM HK charges me HKD$50 per transaction, and every dividend costs me HKD30 per receiving

Maybe I should consolidate.. just need to check fundings for Tradestation Global.

How do you transfer funds? Are you able to use TransferWise/BigPay/Instarem or must be account under your own name?

Thanks! Let me have a read and digest those. Have you tried also to transfer stocks to IBKR (tradestation global)? Not sure if I can direct transfer rather than sell/repurchase with realised loss

Thanks! Just confirmed with FSMHK that it requires physical paper work @ their office in HK. Too bad I'm not based there anymore plus it's impossible to travel now without getting into trouble so gonna leave it there first (and bear the quarterly charges) until it turn green for me to sell...

Yeah already did, zero exceptions, not even via FSM MY as a proxy

After looking at the details, seems like there's no USD.SGD pair (buy usd with SGD). Meaning I have to do double conversion right?

If thats the case would it be better for me to do MYR - HKD (transfer wise to HSBC HK) >> HKD funding into tradestation global >> Get USD.HKD pair >>> Buy stocks

For withdrawal, reverse the flow

maybe I don't need Singapore bank account then

Thanks! Let me check it out once I got my account access

As mentioned by few others - definitely easier. Cheaper, not so sure I'll share once I find out more but I know so far I haven't seen any bank's rate beating the likes of TransferWise/InstaRem/BigPay/etc. from my HK<>MY transfers in the past few years


Good idea Oh well I already started CIMB SG FastSaver account application process so I'll just continue with the flow - no harm keeping an additional country's bank account (unless they start charging).

For now my primary flow will be MY HSBC > TransferWise/etc. > HK HSBC > IBKR HK Local Bank > IBKR Currency Conversion

Just topped up some funds to test (pre-approval) also and it worked well



Just need them to verify my Utility bill address....

I don't think any local broker can offer cheaper rates than those foreign brokers Even HK broker (FSM HK) charged me quite a lot when I did my research and compared with TradeStation Global (/IBKR) recently

Plus most local brokers will charge you hidden fees like "Dividend Handling Fee" - found that out on my HK account recently

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Oct 21 2020, 05:19 PM

Finally got my account approved but no email/SMS notification nothing. The platform layout is quite confusing, need to poke around to learn keep seeing the below message but when clicking "Login to Trading / Market Data" nothing happens

Just curious what base currency most of you guys use? Asking because I just found out that Base Currency is also used for fees charging

I think this was the reason why I cannot convert currency though.. Or maybe I'm wrong
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1590&p=fx





I am thinking if I should stick to USD or change it to either HKD / SGD to make my life easier

My funding will be from Malaysia (MYR) and subsequently routed via either Hong Kong (HKD) or Singapore (SGD), but not sure which to set as my primary base currency (if I were to change).

Pros (+) / cons (-) that I'm thinking

HKD
+ MYR relatively stable but with spikes on certain year, against HKD
+ pegged against USD hence extremely stable
= relatively stable against major world currencies
- political landscape

SGD
+ MYR very stable against SGD
= relatively stable against major world currencies
+ stable political landscape

Or maybe just exchange a small amount into USD (use as fees charging)

Both HK or AU portal is the same. I'm redirected to either one randomly too.

How do you deposit? TT? Or local usd transfer? I've transferred a few times in HKD / SGD so far no fees deducted - all via local to local transfers.

That is one of the most expensive way to transfer the money

Most of us here have some sort of Offshore accounts to help reducing the cost to transfer, easiest one being CIMB SG FastSavers.

Search for "how to open bank account in Singapore" thread in Finances section and you'll see plenty of guides / detailed step by step there (I also posted my step by step recently)

Basically MY > transferwise to Singapore / offshore account > local to local transfers to IBKR

I have both Hong Kong and Singapore as my offshore account and both works similarly. I use HK route more often than SG though, purely preference.

As he mentioned.

Also the sequence for CIMB SG is wrong if you intend to do it, it should be

1) Malaysia > fin tech > cimb sg > ibkr

Or

2)Malaysia > fin tech > ibkr (might get request for verification for 3rd party transfer randomly)


For me I just want to avoid the Hassle of getting verified randomly so I went route 1, where from ibkr perspective I'm transferring from my own account.

In case if money trail (by govt or whoever) is required both MY and Offshore account (HK / SG) are still under me so no need to dispute much because of the CRS and they already know the trail anyway...

Honestly not much difference because the conversion rate within ibkr is near spot rate with approx 2usd commission per currency exchange.

Unless you plan to visit Singapore physically, or already have singapore account in other banks under your own name (we won't even have this conversation if you had one), the only way to do it is to have CIMB MY account.

You need it as a form of E-KYC verification (and they allow you to open SG Account virtually only because they trust that Malaysia counterparts have already validated you). Yes its troublesome but its one of the cheapest (free) method. Alternatively you can look up maybank sg, but they have minimum balance of sgd500 which I disliked hence I went CIMB route.

P/s when opening CIMB MY, opt for free basics account without annual fee (unless you plan to withdraw via atm frequently)

Go to "opening bank account in sg" thread and search post by me - I've wrote down the detailed step by step to open an account.

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Oct 30 2020, 11:12 AM

No inactivity fee as long as you open via TradeStation Global (international): https://www.tradestation-international.com/...ng-commissions/

Ah yes, the minimum $1000 portfolio/cash equivalents, forgot about that.
Still relatively easy to achieve compared to other approaches (like IBKR PRO requires min. 10/month commission for accounts with $100,000 or less, otherwise $10 inactivity fee)

If TradeStation Global did contact you, then yes, it's the correct TSG. Like Ramjade (and many others here) I also ended up using only IBKR apps/website, I find it much more easier to use than the pro-desktop application

In terms of monies flow, it's wrong.

[own name transfer]:
MY Bank to Transfer Wise (RM to SGD)
Transferwise to SG Bank (SGD to SGD)
SG Bank to IBKR Local SG Bank (SGD to SGD)
IBKR Currency Exchange @ Spot-rate with $2 commissions (SGD to whatever you want)

Or just do this, many forummers here does it this way to cut one step:

[3rd party transfer under Transferwise Ltd.]:
MY Bank to Transfer Wise (RM to anything other than USD. Example SGD)
Transferwise to IBKR Local SG bank(SGD to SGD) - potentially flagged for 3rd party verification to prove your money trail
IBKR Currency Exchange @ Spot-rate with $2 commissions (SGD to whatever you want)

I just want to avoid the hassle altogether and since there's no charges for Local-to-Local transfer, I only use Fintech to transfer to myself and only myself - at least the money trail is already captured by CRS so it'll save me lots of headache in case if I get audited for money trail in the future, rather than printing statements here and there trying to match the transactions. I have Offshore HK and SG account under my name so I use both based on my mood (or based on particular stock I want to buy, e.g. if I wanna buy HK stock, I'll always go through HK route so I don't need to double-conversion)

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Oct 30 2020, 11:17 PM

I haven't withdrawn any yet but it's basically the reverse flow

IBKR to whatever foreign currency that you have a bank account (example: HKD or SGD in my case) [cost = spot rate + $2 commission from IBKR]
IBKR Local HKD/SGD to your offshore HKD/SGD account. [cost = $0 for 1st withdrawal monthly, $10 on 2nd withdrawal onwards for the month] read here
From your Offshore HKD/SGD account, initiate transferwise to your MYR Home account [cost = whatever InstaRem/Transferwise charges you. 0.5%?]


1. TransferWise/InstaRem cost to convert MYR to SGD or HKD
2. already factored in above, transferwise / instarem always show what you ultimately receive nett-of-fees
3. zero cost for local bank transfer to IBKR local account. REMEMBER!! LOCAL TRANSFER!!! NOT TT!!!!
4. spot rate and $2 commissions for currency exchange

You can ignore the FOREX Loss. The spot-rate is really spot-rate, it's equivalent to what you see when you ask google "1 SGD = XXX USD"

So about RM 16 per transaction I guess, if using your numbers.

> I exchanged approx. RM5000 from Malaysia
> Got ~HKD9250 from TransferWise to HK account (I don't really care what exchange rate or fees they show me, in the end it's how much money in VS how much money received) This transfer costed me ~40 MYR based on google rate
> equivalent transfer HKD9250 from HSBC HK into IBKR HK account
> converted within IBKR HKD9250 and got 918GBP after fees of USD$2 commission (~8.31 MYR). Google Rate (based on my screenshot) was at 9250HKD=918.55GBP

So all in all, RM48.31 out of RM5000 = ~0.97%+/- total loss before trading if I really need to calculate (it's a mess so I gave up as long as I find the cheapest route)


Personally I feel that converting anything below RM3k is not worth it because the $2 commission is still the same

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Oct 31 2020, 12:01 AM

Thanks for the kind words and your time on reading my blog! Truly appreciate it.

So far, I've moved most of my funds (unit trust) and 1 stock (xiaomi) out from FSM HK, simply by selling it and take profits then transfer the fund away. Either way, I'm also reassessing these stock/funds so I hasn't really "buy back" yet. As for the remaining stocks, I tried to do the transfer route fsm HK have a strict "walk in only" so that means that I'll have to travel to Hong Kong just to transfer the stocks.

Honestly I haven't made up my mind yet but there's few ways that I'm thinking right now
1) hold onto it until it turns into at least paper gain, to cover the "sell transactions few", then buy back via IBKR at same price. Downside is - I'll keep paying for "dividend handling charges"
2) bite the bullet, cash out now, then move into IBKR. This saves me the dividend handling fees. From my calculations, it'll take about 2-3 dividend cycles to basically cover back my "selling fees" so I just have to hold it in ibkr till it turns into paper gain (vs. Original price), or hold it forever
3) do nothing and keep it in FSM HK and maintain my account. Downside is the recurring dividend handling fees (the fee eats up 90% of my dividend for us stocks. HK stocks still better, hkd 30 per dividend handling)
4) wait for one day when COVID-19 is over and so happen if I ever travel to HK for business, then settle it there and then


Honestly I'm leaning towards 2

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Nov 1 2020, 01:24 PM

If you have funded usd 1k,just wait another 2-3 days. Happened to me as well, I guess they just needed time to ensure that the cash is indeed settled down.

I had to wait extra 3 days after I got my login details from both ibkr + TSG before I can trade. I already fully funded above 1k usd during the application process (more than 5 days before I got login details) so no idea why the delay, but doesn't matter in the end

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Nov 4 2020, 01:04 PM

For cimb my to cimb sg transfer, it SHOULD BE LOCAL transfer, not TT. I made the same mistake.

Your 1k SGD can be funded via other sources incl transferwise.

For opening sg account you can read more in this thread or this step by step guide