Hello, my Thai wife has a small amount of money that she would like to invest. In the US, I have used firms like Fidelity, Schwab, Ameritrade, etc, before. She is looking for something similar here.....something that would allow her to make a few trades a month for publically traded stocks, mutual funds, ETF's, etc. The key is that she would like to be able to purchase some non-Thai funds/ETFs, such as a Nasdaq index fund, or a Vanguard Gold Fund, etc.

I see, for instance, that Schwab has an account for international (non-US) individual investors with the ability to invest in US securities/funds, but the minimum opening balance is $25,000 USD!

http://www.schwab-global.com/public/schwab-gcb-en/what_we_offer/independent_investing/fees_and_commissions.html

Anyone know of any better options?

Thanks so much in advance.

Hi. This a fairly frequently asked question here so it would be well worth doing a forum search (top right this page) using search terms like "stock trading" "share trading" "stock broker" etc ... and I think you will quickly uncover some useful + recent prior threads. Not sure if you will be able to use one broker for both the Thai and non-Thai securities ... but either way there are many threads in relation to both

I found that etrade - http://www.global.etrade.com/ offers service with a $2,000 minimum deposit for a US brokerage account for non-us citizens/residents.

There is a Thai online brokerage called KT ZMICO - www.ktzmico.com - that allow you to trade Thai stocks online with a very small deposit (I can't remember the figure, I think it was 10,000 baht or so).

Etrade is an option but keep in mind that they no longer issue Visa Debit cards for non-US residents so getting funds in and out suddenly became much more expensive. ($25 per wire-out).