The cheapest non-Irish stockbroker

Mumha

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There doesn't seem to be a best non-irish stockbroker thread so .... http://www.tdameritrade.com/welcome1.html seem to have gone back to no maintenance fees (Datek pre 911 used to have that) and 9.99 trades. Just at the point where I was going to close it having been charged 15 dollars a quarter for the last few years .... sod's law.
 
Re: The Cheapest Irish Stockbroker

It stills compares unfavourably with continental online brokers - I regularly use Cortal and their rates are 0.20% with a minimum of €17.88 (and they are not the cheapest). For an order of €15,000 that a difference between €75 and €30.
 
Re: The Cheapest Irish Stockbroker

jpd said:
It stills compares unfavourably with continental online brokers - I regularly use Cortal and their rates are 0.20% with a minimum of €17.88 (and they are not the cheapest). For an order of €15,000 that a difference between €75 and €30.

From their website Cortel appear to have a custody fee of 0.14% per Qtr Vs NIB's flat fee of 40pa. There also appears to be a 100e annual mgt fee for current a/c. Presumably need to open an basic current account before you can trade.

All in all given the fact that you would be dealing with a local bank I think the NIB offer is quite competitive esp. for a buy and hold strategy using the euro exchanges.

That said, we have a long way to go to get to where the US is for such trading.
 
Re: The Cheapest Irish Stockbroker

I have been looking for simmilar information. The reality is that all Irish stockbrokers, like everything elese in this country, are a ripoff. I am looking to buy a small amount of stocks in a company, around €2000. The non-activity charges and maintanence fees for most of these acounts seems so high that even if the shares are performing well i still would be losing money.
Does anyone know how much it would cost to buy the shares and recieve the share certificate? How long would it take to execute the trade? How long would it take to sell the stocks again? What are the charges accociated with this?

Also is it possible to open a US or UK trading account. I realise that you require a bank account in the relevent countries but is this possible to do without being a resident?
 
Re: The Cheapest Irish Stockbroker

Hi, Check out Keytrade. No annual account charges and ability to trade on a lot of exchanges. Worth looking at.
 
Not only do you pay excessive charges with most/all of the Irish stockbrokers but you generally don't have immediate access to buy/sell which can be an issue also.

I've had an account with Datek, now www.TDAmeritrade.com for about 4 years now and my only outlay is a trading fee of $9.99 per transaction...no setup fees, no quarterly/annual charges and they even pay me a small percentage on my cash deposits. BTW, you don't need a bank account as they have their own account structure, just wire transfer money from your bank to theirs.

The online tools are excellent and you have full control of your own trades. Only issues that you may have is that you only trade the American exchanges and you are exposed to currency fluctuations which may increase/decrease your profits.

You are required to fill out a tax form to state that you are a non-resident and not subject to their taxes but as always are required (as a compliant tax payer) to declare your profits to the Irish taxman.

P.S. One benefit of investing in US companies is the amount of information available on the internet, some excellent message boards and reams of information. I'm currently invested in an Irish company which has traded a range for the last 12 months but am extremely frustrated because I cannot trade real-time on the cycles and also find it difficult to get timely information/opinions. The big boys are trading this I'm sure but this little guy is not getting any short term action, just relying on some long term gains.
 
I am having trouble finding Keytrade on the web - does anyone have their web address?

I am trying to buy a small amount of shares once off and want to hold the share certificates myself. What is the most cost effective way of doing this - which broker should I use?
 
Not only do you pay excessive charges with most/all of the Irish stockbrokers but you generally don't have immediate access to buy/sell which can be an issue also.

I've had an account with Datek, now www.TDAmeritrade.com for about 4 years now and my only outlay is a trading fee of $9.99 per transaction...no setup fees, no quarterly/annual charges and they even pay me a small percentage on my cash deposits. BTW, you don't need a bank account as they have their own account structure, just wire transfer money from your bank to theirs.

The online tools are excellent and you have full control of your own trades. Only issues that you may have is that you only trade the American exchanges and you are exposed to currency fluctuations which may increase/decrease your profits.

You are required to fill out a tax form to state that you are a non-resident and not subject to their taxes but as always are required (as a compliant tax payer) to declare your profits to the Irish taxman.

P.S. One benefit of investing in US companies is the amount of information available on the internet, some excellent message boards and reams of information. I'm currently invested in an Irish company which has traded a range for the last 12 months but am extremely frustrated because I cannot trade real-time on the cycles and also find it difficult to get timely information/opinions. The big boys are trading this I'm sure but this little guy is not getting any short term action, just relying on some long term gains.

They certainly have nice pricing however don't appear to be taking registrations from Ireland at the moment.
Its not a listed country on the application form unfortunately, I was going to sign up.
 
I've been trading with http://www.interactivebrokers.com and have found them to be very cheap. Stocks are half a cent (US$) per share and options are 50 to 75 cents per contract.
I use it for the US markets only but you can trade dozens of other international markets (no ISEQ though) - some are free, some incur a subscription fee.
They also have some very good workshops at http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/education/priorWebinars.php?ib_entity=uk - the ones by Dan Gramza are particularly good on trend analysis.
 
Try to find in the www. " flatex.de" , they're advertising a flat charge of €2.50.- per deal. I don't know anything else about them, so check the conditions.
 
I checked http://www.flatex.de/index.php?page=rates myself. Typicall, only parts of the total costs are advertised. They give a sample of buying Allianz shares in frankfurt, for 200 shares in one deal the total costs (involving one broker buying from three other brokers in the name of the client) would be € 21.51.- . Not that cheap.
 
I've had an account with Datek, now www.TDAmeritrade.com


I also use the above broker. Not fully sure if they take Eurpoean customers anymore but well worth checking out.

Like Galwegian said - $10 a trade and 10$ a month for level 2 quotes.
AIB/BOI will transfer money for about 25euro - which is great and it's in your ameritrade a/cin about 3 days.

Full control on trades - from any pc -full control on limit/market/short orders. no ringing an Irish broker to carry out a trade ??

worth a look.
 
I checked http://www.flatex.de/index.php?page=rates myself. Typicall, only parts of the total costs are advertised. They give a sample of buying Allianz shares in frankfurt, for 200 shares in one deal the total costs (involving one broker buying from three other brokers in the name of the client) would be € 21.51.- . Not that cheap.



From correspondence with them . It appears Flatex only deal with the buying and selling of shares listed on the German stock exchange.
 
I am looking for a new broker and want to move into equivalent ETF's instead of the expensive mutual funds I currently hold.

Ideally I want a monetary cap on all trades rather than an unlimited percentage fee and would like the ability to trade on most exchanges worldwide - ISEQ doesn't matter due to high stamp duty, like everything here, and frequent difficulty in executing sizeable trades online.
Interest paid on cash in account is a nice perk too.

http://www.interactivebrokers.com sounds good in this regard with a 0.1% charge up to a max of 29 euros or £6 - £29 STG depending on size. They have a good policy on FX charges and offer euro accounts so it seems that I could fund my account without encurring high banking charges.

I do have two reservations
1. The monthly $10 charge if I pay less than $30 commission that month as I am not planning to be a frequent trader on most shares I hold or buy options, CDF's or other highly leveraged short term products but would like to have the ability to dispose of shares at a reasonable cost. This especially applies to ETF's.
2. No Crest type account to hold shares myself so I am a little exposed even though they have insurance.

I have looked at keytrade - a little expensive for UK trades at £29 as I want to be able to diversify and buy smaller amounts i.e. under 10K.
I would appreciate anyone who could share their experiences dealing with IB or recommend a better online broker.
 
Flatex does deal with German shares. True. They also deal internatinoal fonds and other international investment/speculation objects.
 
Can anyone recommend a good cheap German online broker if I want to invest in ETFs as well as in an index tracker? German address no big deal.

Fanny
 
You won't beat Interactive Brokers on rates or professionalism. Most of my trades (US markets) cost no more than $1-$5. For example, 200 shares of Apple - over $15,000 worth at time of writing - would incur a charge of $1. 1000 shares - $75,000 worth - would cost $5. That's unbeatable. Even if you pay the $10 monthly inactivity fee, you'll still win out on commissions.

They are also used by some of the biggest players in the industry - real professional outfit. They use a Smart routing technology which helps get you a better price on market orders - other brokers earn money at the expense of their clients by routing orders to a particular exchange with whom they have an agreement to do so (and by doing so, getting you a worse price than you should have).

Elitetrader.com is a useful message board that evaluates different US brokers. Opinions on IB are very positive. Check it out if you want confirmation.
 
I have registered with IB and am investigating the most convenient way to fund my account. I don't have a Current Account with an Irish clearing bank and would appreciate any information on alternate funding options.
 
"Wiring from a normal deposit account seems like the obvious option."

I finally opened an account with NIB to allow me to make international Swift transfers online for no charge, within the Eurozone up to 50K. I did not find another bank offering the same overall service.
 
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