Aadvice wanted about Stocks and Shares while living in Thailand..

[easybullet3]

I am UK citizen and want to casually deal stocks and shares (fast trading).

I will most likely buy shares from UK or International Companies. (there is a small chance I might buy from Thai companies, but not immediately).

i was interested to know what you guys do in terms of which Broker you use.

Do you use a THAI broker? or a UK Broker? or a different country Broker?

someone told me its good to fly to Singapore and set-up a Singapore Broker account (as no tax).

- in the UK I can buy and sell (via my Bank) and there is a UK Tax on UK stocks, plus the banks commission. (if I buy international stocks there is no UK Tax).

- in Thailand, I can trade from my Krungsri Bank, there is a buy/sell commission... (i am not sure if there is Tax) BUT I CAN ONLY BUY THAI STOCK!!! there is no international stock option.

- a friend of mine said I can go to Singapore and open a trading account and trade all international stock and there is no Tax.

- or, is there another option?

What do you guys do?

I really would appreciate some advice from some expats that have been trading from their homes in Thailand.

Again,

Thanks

[topt]

Have you checked the Jobs/banking etc. forum as this has been covered a few times there?

If you are trading UK stocks do you really use your bank rather than a low cost platform - Etrade, Sippdeal, Hargreaves Lansdown, TDDirect to name but a few? With these you only pay normally a flat rate charge per trade plus of course the stamp duty.

When you say "UK tax" are you referring to the stamp duty or tax on earnings which then begs the question are you non resident for tax in UK or....?

I cannot imagine it would be any cheaper buying UK stocks via a foreign platform but I am sure someone can be more definitive.......

[easybullet3]

Have you checked the Jobs/banking etc. forum as this has been covered a few times there?

If you are trading UK stocks do you really use your bank rather than a low cost platform - Etrade, Sippdeal, Hargreaves Lansdown, TDDirect to name but a few? With these you only pay normally a flat rate charge per trade plus of course the stamp duty.

When you say "UK tax" are you referring to the stamp duty or tax on earnings which then begs the question are you non resident for tax in UK or....?

I cannot imagine it would be any cheaper buying UK stocks via a foreign platform but I am sure someone can be more definitive.......

(thanks for your reply "topt"

i will check the low cost 'online' brokers (as you have mentioned).

Nat West is around £11 per trade (plus Stamp Duty)

maybe I will save a pound or 2 if I went online and searched.

i was really wondering more about buying stock in other international companies.

USA, Australia, etc...

because I cant find a Thai Bank that does international stock, I was wondering about the SIngapore Trading account maybe...

also: sorry. I wasnt talking about UK TAX... (i mean: Stamp Duty).

so, would people buying stock in UK Companies also have to pay this Stamp Duty? or is it only a UK home-based duty?

Most of my money (that I intend to trade with) is here in Thailand already.

it would be annoying to send it back home to trade,, and then withdraw occasional funds back to thailand again.

i would prefer to have a trading account over here in Thailand to avoid the continuous transferring of money internationally.

[topt]

Have you checked the Jobs/banking etc. forum as this has been covered a few times there?

If you are trading UK stocks do you really use your bank rather than a low cost platform - Etrade, Sippdeal, Hargreaves Lansdown, TDDirect to name but a few? With these you only pay normally a flat rate charge per trade plus of course the stamp duty.

When you say "UK tax" are you referring to the stamp duty or tax on earnings which then begs the question are you non resident for tax in UK or....?

I cannot imagine it would be any cheaper buying UK stocks via a foreign platform but I am sure someone can be more definitive.......

(thanks for your reply "topt"

i will check the low cost 'online' brokers (as you have mentioned).

Nat West is around £11 per trade (plus Stamp Duty)

maybe I will save a pound or 2 if I went online and searched.

i was really wondering more about buying stock in other international companies.

USA, Australia, etc...

because I cant find a Thai Bank that does international stock, I was wondering about the SIngapore Trading account maybe...

also: sorry. I wasnt talking about UK TAX... (i mean: Stamp Duty).

so, would people buying stock in UK Companies also have to pay this Stamp Duty? or is it only a UK home-based duty?

Most of my money (that I intend to trade with) is here in Thailand already.

it would be annoying to send it back home to trade,, and then withdraw occasional funds back to thailand again.

i would prefer to have a trading account over here in Thailand to avoid the continuous transferring of money internationally.

No you cannot avoid the stamp duty.

The Nat West rate is competitive unless you trade regularly ("fast trades") where most platforms offer around £5/6 per trade above a certain number per month/quarter.

Wherever you trade from outside Thailand you will need to transfer money and suffer the FX one way or another.

I would ask a mod to move this topic to the banking sub forum where you should get more input.

[Dave Phuket Sisaket]

I used to be a professional trader, but have been out of the game for some years now so things have likely changed. However Interactive Brokers used to be one of the most popular for international independent traders. If you are really trading, as in high frequency scalping, or day trading, the underlying companies don't really matter that much. All you need is volume and volatility, so I would think you could find some decent trading vehicles on the Thai exchange. Just an idea..

[AyG]

There's really not much reason to use anything other than a cheap UK-based broker. Only one real reason I can think of: if you hope to be deemed non-UK domiciled in the event of your death you would want to hold your investments in excess of the inheritance tax threshold offshore to avoid IHT.

If you intend to trade on the SET it would probably be cheaper to have a local brokerage account just for that activity.

[ExpatJ]

For thai stocks i recommend SCB securities because they send out lots of good research on thai companies daily.

I am a brit also, just in process of opening an etrade account in singapore to give me access to US stocks and funds (buying funds in Asia is way more expensive than buying in US/EU). I also have an HSBC singapore account which lets me trade in HK and Sing stocks.

[easybullet3]

I used to be a professional trader, but have been out of the game for some years now so things have likely changed. However Interactive Brokers used to be one of the most popular for international independent traders. If you are really trading, as in high frequency scalping, or day trading, the underlying companies don't really matter that much. All you need is volume and volatility, so I would think you could find some decent trading vehicles on the Thai exchange. Just an idea..

Actually,,, that was my initial plan.

Yes,, day trading/fast trades.

so, to be honest, i'm just looking at fluctuations in ANY company.

it does not have to be a UK company.

if I trade in Thaialnd (with Thai companies) my disadvantages would be:

(1) I cant read-up ANYTHING about any of the companies I am considering buying shares.. (so there is slightly more risk, coz I cant google if something is on the brink of collapse!)

(2) I wold be using a Thai (english translated) website. if something goes wrong,, I may have to try explaining the problem to a Thai Customer Service Person.. which may end up being a nightmare!!

so there is more risk involved if I deal within thailand, I think.

PS: why did you stop trading?

did you lose a lot? or a different reason?

do you have any words of wisdom for me,, (in case I fall into any pitfalls that you may have passed through) ?

Thanks

[easybullet3]

For thai stocks i recommend SCB securities because they send out lots of good research on thai companies daily.

I am a brit also, just in process of opening an etrade account in singapore to give me access to US stocks and funds (buying funds in Asia is way more expensive than buying in US/EU). I also have an HSBC singapore account which lets me trade in HK and Sing stocks.

wow! this is good info

a few qu's:

(1) SCB send daily info... i guess its in Thai? or english too?

(2) how is the SCB website? is it easy to understand? does it ever crash or have problems?

(3) you have a singapore account already? thats good... so your HSBC account only lets you trade HK and SIngapore stock? it wont allow you to also buy Thai stock? (or, if it does,,, is it still better to go through SCB?)

(4) so the etrader account will allow you to buy from more countries than your current HSBC, right?

thansk again for your answers..

this has been really helping me out.

[easybullet3]

No you cannot avoid the stamp duty.

The Nat West rate is competitive unless you trade regularly ("fast trades") where most platforms offer around £5/6 per trade above a certain number per month/quarter.

Wherever you trade from outside Thailand you will need to transfer money and suffer the FX one way or another.

I would ask a mod to move this topic to the banking sub forum where you should get more input.

Actually,, I posted a similar question in the Banking Sub-Forum a few days ago and didnt get any replies!

in this General Forum i seem to be getting much more attention

so I will leave it here as long as possible - unless they decide to move it to the other forum.. Lol

[F4UCorsair]

Have you considered an online brokering service? I use Commsec in Australia, and there are many, so there must be some in SE Asia you could use.

I think the best rate I ever had with a broker, many years ago, was .5%. I pay as little as .15% (that's 'point one five'), way better than using a real broker.

It seems you're more of a trader, so probably not relevant, but I mostly invest for dividends, dividend stripping in fact, and cycle my investments through as soon as the share price has recovered to its pre dividend value, and move onto the next round of dividends, but in Australia that time must be 45 days (clear of buying and selling days, so in fact 47) to gain a benefit from the franking credit. I only trade those that offer 100% franking, i.e., company tax of the full 30% has been paid. That makes a big difference, and a $1.00 dividend becomes a $1.30 dividend!!

There is a mechanism where you can set up an offshore company (offshore to Australia that is) and trade Australian shares free of tax. That is not available to an individual, so depending on the cost of setting up the company, that avenue may be worthwhile exploring.

[PenguinX]

Some online Forex brokers offer trading in stocks, bonds and commodities which in their jargon would be advertised as CFD - contract for difference. They don't charge any commission, they make money on spread between buying and selling price just as they do with forex.

In CFD trading you don't hold any stocks and so don't get dividends but bet on price movement, both up and down equally. That's the main philosophical difference from usual investors who want price of their stocks to go up and feel nervous when it goes down. CFD trading is agnostic to that and so it's not investing per se, it's trying to predict market movements and capitalize on it.

There are thousands of forex brokers out there and ymmv, in addition to currencies some offer trading in gold and oil, some offer bonds, the widest spectrum of instruments that I have found so far is on AavaFx (Irish company). They cover all major European bourses plus the usual American ones. The downside is that their spreads are a bit too high for day trading so you will have to deal with that.

Maybe you can find a broker that doesn't offer as much variety but also doesn't charge this big a spread. "Pure" forex trading is much easier in this regard.

Trading platforms are free and they all usually support Metatrader with it's massive library of tools and indicators and which is now available for mobile phones.

Financing your account is done either via bank transfers (slowest but cheapest) or the usual Paypal/Moneybrokers online services (fast but you will be charged for making a withdrawal).

Thailand doesn't offer any forex trading and none of the brokers in the region are comparable to Europe or US based ones who will happily take Thailand based customers. I'm not using this forum a lot but I've seen Team eToro posting here, it's one of the most popular US brokers. They don't offer much in European stock trading, though, and US margins are limited to 200 comparing to 400-500 you can find in Europe, if that matters to you.

As far as Thai stocks are concerned - there is a number of brokers here, trading platforms are free, some financial advice is in English, and you can use flash based or mobile version of Settrade with all of them if you don't like their own tools. As for quality of the said advice - ymmv again. There's a lot of local discussion about SET going on but it's all in Thai, if you are hoping to get some tips, gossip, or explanations for what is happening you are out of luck.

Afaik, all Thai stock brokers need a rather large sum to open a margin account and allow you trading shorts and setting automatic stops so you can't spread your eggs over several baskets easily, and their trial periods are usually only a month or two long, not much you can learn in such a short time. Forex demos never actually expire and you can open an account with ridiculously small amounts of money.

[jethro69]

A account in Singapore or HK might be a good idea, but first thing to check are the comissions on UK shares, or US, Eurostock, AU. If you want to do fast trading those could use up the whole profit. I was trading from a Luxembourg account, and Asian shares had huge comissions, also US stocks were higher, then DAX30, or CAC40.

I have currently an account in Germany (Flatex) with comissions as low as 5 Eu, but I don't use it currently, as I focus more on Forex right now. Germans, take the tax from dividends, even if not residing in Germany.

For an english platform, you might be more lucky in Switzerland or Luxembourg, Cyprus, and then the smaller Islands.

Hope that helps

[jethro69]

Another option might be Binary options, that's fast trading indeed. from 60 sec. to 15-20 min is standard.

They deal mostly in Forex, but most offer the big shares like Google, Facebook, Apple, a.s.o.

Beside that there is Oil, some metals (Gold, Silver, Palladium, Copper).

There is no spread either, in fact they take the Ask/Bid price /2.

It's rather easy to open a account with them. Some start as low as 5$, 25$ is more the norm.

All you have to do is bet on a higher or lower price within the choosen time frame. If you win you have a return of 70-80%, if not you lost your 5/25$ or whatever you put in. Sounds easy, but is sometimes quite tricky.

[Bpuumike]

I used to be a professional trader, but have been out of the game for some years now so things have likely changed. However Interactive Brokers used to be one of the most popular for international independent traders. If you are really trading, as in high frequency scalping, or day trading, the underlying companies don't really matter that much. All you need is volume and volatility, so I would think you could find some decent trading vehicles on the Thai exchange. Just an idea..

Actually,,, that was my initial plan.

Yes,, day trading/fast trades.

so, to be honest, i'm just looking at fluctuations in ANY company.

it does not have to be a UK company.

if I trade in Thaialnd (with Thai companies) my disadvantages would be:

(1) I cant read-up ANYTHING about any of the companies I am considering buying shares.. (so there is slightly more risk, coz I cant google if something is on the brink of collapse!)

(2) I wold be using a Thai (english translated) website. if something goes wrong,, I may have to try explaining the problem to a Thai Customer Service Person.. which may end up being a nightmare!!

so there is more risk involved if I deal within thailand, I think.

PS: why did you stop trading?

did you lose a lot? or a different reason?

do you have any words of wisdom for me,, (in case I fall into any pitfalls that you may have passed through) ?

Thanks

Bear in mind the time differences. For fast/day trading in the UK and US you will have very late nights.

[rightlineman]

I think E-trade international would be a good choice. Lots of good information, guidance, low costs, 24 hr. phone and e-mail for any questions, easy to use, transfers of money in and out, banking, end of year tax forms and information provided. Can sign up on-line,

[iamariva1957]

I am from the Us and I use Etrade myself. There is a flat rate and great services offered by them. As for the tax thing... I do so little as apposed to some I figure that that is never been a real headache. I just do the right thing and report it. Hell I am not greedy... just like the idea of making something on the side. Besides it sort of keeps me busy and out of the bars where the return is just not as good!

[Munger]

Have you checked the Jobs/banking etc. forum as this has been covered a few times there?

If you are trading UK stocks do you really use your bank rather than a low cost platform - Etrade, Sippdeal, Hargreaves Lansdown, TDDirect to name but a few? With these you only pay normally a flat rate charge per trade plus of course the stamp duty.

When you say "UK tax" are you referring to the stamp duty or tax on earnings which then begs the question are you non resident for tax in UK or....?

I cannot imagine it would be any cheaper buying UK stocks via a foreign platform but I am sure someone can be more definitive.......

(thanks for your reply "topt"

i will check the low cost 'online' brokers (as you have mentioned).

Nat West is around £11 per trade (plus Stamp Duty)

maybe I will save a pound or 2 if I went online and searched.

i was really wondering more about buying stock in other international companies.

USA, Australia, etc...

because I cant find a Thai Bank that does international stock, I was wondering about the SIngapore Trading account maybe...

also: sorry. I wasnt talking about UK TAX... (i mean: Stamp Duty).

so, would people buying stock in UK Companies also have to pay this Stamp Duty? or is it only a UK home-based duty?

Most of my money (that I intend to trade with) is here in Thailand already.

it would be annoying to send it back home to trade,, and then withdraw occasional funds back to thailand again.

i would prefer to have a trading account over here in Thailand to avoid the continuous transferring of money internationally.

No you cannot avoid the stamp duty.

NONSENSE,"cfd" have no stamp duty

[plebtard]

b4 you can open a trading account you need a bank account in the country you want to trade in good luck with that in singapore

my recommendation would be gold futures in thailand.

thai stocks are not for the faint hearted.

[Forethat]

b4 you can open a trading account you need a bank account in the country you want to trade in good luck with that in singapore

I opened an account with UBS in Singapore for trading and transfer purposes.

[AyG]

b4 you can open a trading account you need a bank account in the country you want to trade in good luck with that in singapore:clap2:

Absolute bollards. I have a trading account in Luxembourg and have never opened a bank account there.

And as for opening a bank account in Singapore, it's pretty straightforward, though you do have physically to go there. There are even bank branches at the airport to make account opening easier.

[plebtard]

b4 you can open a trading account you need a bank account in the country you want to trade in good luck with that in singapore

I opened an account with UBS in Singapore for trading and transfer purposes.

hmm you did better than me (i think they though i was an american, i wasnt going to tell them any different, just cant get past the attitude). didnt even get past the front desk at that one.

lost count of the banks and tries and times i've tried. ok, years ago had hsbc and also standard chartered but closed them due to obnoxious staff. this was years ago before the war of terrorism, given up completely now. singapore is just bad news all round.

[plebtard]

last refusal went something along the lines of: you have a bank account in thailand therefore you are a money launderer. was when the thai banks were under attack a while back. others, no long term visa, dont like your address, address in written in thai, or else the staff are just too foul to talk with longer than a second or two, no work permit, only for singapore citizens, you name it they'll think of it as an excuse. at no time have i ever pretended to be living in singapore and always told them i am mainly in thailand..

i cant get round to their point of view that they are doing me an absolutely BIG favour by letting me give them MY money. you happy with that attitude, go for it.

a previous time when i had the hsbc account in singapore i balk a singapore trading company opening when i was let known that to open an account one needed to open a large unsecured promissory note in their favour, was when the thai security trading companies were dropping like flies. i declined their generous offer, they started yelling at me and accusing me of being a lawyer, i calmly walked out. was one of the high visibility trading companies..