The cheapest non-Irish stockbroker

I had submitted the below to another post (cheapest Irish stockbroker).

i have returned from the US and am still reeling at the outrageous fees for retail investing. I have an Ameritrade account in the U.S. and they are a perfectly adequate low cost broker.

I still want a low cost broker in Europe. Has anyone experience with TD Waterhouse in the UK? they are at [broken link removed]. Ameritrade took over TD Waterhouse in the US a while ago, though I assume the UK TDW is independent of the US outfit.

Each transaction costs STG 12.50. You can have a EUR denominated account, as well as USD/STLG/CAN$.There are no account maintenance fees as long as your balance is above STLG 5,000 or you make one trade per quarter. If you're buying EUR denominated ETFs/funds like EuroStoxx 50, then there won't be any FX charges. If you are buying e.g. a Japan ETF, then there will be a 1.5% FX charge on the exchange rate.

With TD Waterhouse UK, you can trade Irish shares that have a listing on the London Stock Exchange, with 1% stamp duty charge applying as usual. Most of the major irish companies have a listing on the LSE e.g. you can buy ALBK (AIB) in a EURO denominated account - therefore no FX charges, and only STG12.50 per trade. That is the only cost. However, you cannot buy the ISEQ ETF using TD Waterhouse UK.

TDW UK - no annual fee. Online trades STG12.50

This sounds a hell of a lot better than Davy or Goodbodys or Sharewatch (Sharewatch charges EUR60 annual fee. Online trades are 0.3% + EUR19.95.)

Any feedback on the above? I am surprised TDW UK didn't come up as an option on this posting so far.
 
Hi
tried to open an account but not sure if its possible as per below, might try calling later next week


To open a trading account online with TD Waterhouse, you will need to meet the following minimum conditions:

You are a private individual aged 18 or over.
You are a UK resident.
You are a British national.

If you do not meet these requirements, you may still be able to open a trading account with TD Waterhouse.
Please call us now on
0800 138 1900
to discuss your needs

how did u manage to open one?
Thanks,

Eoghan
 
i have posted about this before but not here which is probably where it should be, but anyways Firstrade offer trades at 6.95USD for unlimited shares, they have no maintenance fees or registration fees, and there is no minimum deposit.

they also appear to be running a really cool offer to new accounts opened up until mid-April that will get 100 free trades on opening an account with 2000 USD or more. unfortunatel existing users can't avail of this

with regards their service, the site and trading is easy to use and you can get electronic statements which is free as opposed to paying 1 or 2 USD every so often for a statement or transaction paper - took me a while to register for this a while back and cost me many calls to their support to change me over. hopefully they fixed this. also, i had one pretty serious issue with them with regards a dividend - they failed to pay a dividend from a stock to me and only after i called them was it sorted immediately. other dividends came in fine however.

overall, good for the price and they appear to be improving all the time.
 
Just a quick question to all ye stock traders - do ye pay all taxes due on gains?
 
Just a be careful. If you buy US stocks from a US stockbroking firm. The stocks are considered located within the United state. You will then be liable for Inheritance tax. A non resident spouse is only given $13,000 allowance and the rates are quite high!
I don't know about using stockbrokers within Europe.
 
Just a be careful. If you buy US stocks from a US stockbroking firm. The stocks are considered located within the United state. You will then be liable for Inheritance tax. A non resident spouse is only given $13,000 allowance and the rates are quite high!
I don't know about using stockbrokers within Europe.
 
Why does Inheritance Tax come into play in this case? I thought that only CGT was applicable.
 
Ok, in another post recently I stated that i've been researching the cheapest option for online execution only sharedealing. The following is what I have collected, subject to several terms and conditions. It may contain errors or omit some info, I've done my best to collate the data as well as possible. I'm sorry if the chart is hard to read, i'll experiment with better ways to present the data later.


Firm.........Annual Fee...IRL....UK......EU......USA....Inactivity....Notes..............................
NIB..............€40......€20....€20.....€20.....€20.....n/a.........Must Open a Current A/C............
Davy.............€80......€25....€25.....€50.....€50.....n/a............................................
Goodbody.........€26......€32....€32.....n/a.....€50......n/a............................................
Sharewatch.......€60......€20....€20.....n/a.....n/a......n/a............................................
ODL Securities...n/a......€40....€18.30..€40.....€12.10...n/a.........EU/ISEQ Phone Only.................
Etrade UK........n/a......n/a....€13.....n/a.....n/a....€7pm (6mts)......................................
Etrade USA.......n/a......n/a....n/a.....n/a.....€15....€30pq (3mt)......................................
Saxo Bank........n/a......n/a....€21.....€20.....€11......n/a............................................
Firstrade........n/a......n/a....n/a.....n/a.....€5.30....n/a............................................
Interactive Bks..n/a......n/a....€8.79....€4.....€0.75..€7.59pm (1mt)..100 prior trades rq. to open A/C..
Keytrade.........n/a......n/a....€43.....€14.95..€22.70...n/a............................................
Hoodless Brennan.n/a......n/a....€10.25..€10.25..€10.25...n/a............................................


Notes
> Prices are converted from $/£ to € at prices quoted by XE.com on 13th March 2007
> Only brokers accepting Irish Citizens are included, this rules out many UK/US brokers
> Prices are online minimums, in the case of several firms, percentages kick in after trades exceed €2k-€3k in value
> In some cases discounts are given for higher volume/frequency trading. e.g. Davy offers €15 trades to high frequency traders.
> UK/IRL trades attract stamp of 1%/0.5% respectively
> Many firms require minimum balances of several thousand to open an account
> No attempt has been made to incorporate other factors in the table such as account funding methods, ease of use, service quality or firm size/safety
> Inactivity fees apply after x number of months elapse without a trade (in brackets)
> In some cases account fees can be dodged by frequent trading
> Many other European/US/UK brokers exist. The above are only the ones im aware of who offer UK/US/or IRL trades
> EU prices are the typical minimums, German trades may have lower mins than say French
 
Further to the above information. Does anybody know what the buy/sell spreads are like with these brokers? The low transaction charges are fine but if the execution of your trades are with market makers offering poor spreads then it works out pricey. I've never seen much visibility on this item with the transaction charge usually being the headline figure.
 

'Traditional' brokers trying to justify their absurd charges tend to emphasise their supposed expertise and hand holding rather than the quality of their executions. Don't expect better prices just because broker fees are higher.

In fact, discount brokerages are not the no frills operations one might expect. Almost any US discount brokerage will give free access to research tools, charting applications, stock screeners etc - the main Irish brokers don't even come close. They're stuck in the last century.

The real divide among on-line firms is between the DAT brokers (eg, Interactive Brokers, Tradestation, Cybertrader) and the conventional online brokers (Scottrade, Firsttrade, etc). Daytraders looking for the quickest execution at the best rate would need a DAT broker. If you're less active and only use limit orders rather than market orders, then it's not an issue worth losing sleep over.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_access_trading

BTW, Ameritrade should not be on the aforementioned list - they no longer accept Irish clients.
 
Thanks charttrader. That's been an issue that's been nagging me for a while. Largely a non-issue i suspect from your response. (i know it used to be a problem particularly on nasdaq and with low volatility small caps.).

Cheers.
 
Silvamuppet, will likely still be an issue with low-volatility small caps (and high-volatility small caps, for that matter), but no broker can save you there. All depends on liquidity of particular stock. If a stock is thinly traded - say, 10,000 shares a day - the bid/ask spread will be large. A stock like Apple, which trades millions of shares each day, will be a different story - no more than a cent apart. As I say - depends on the stock.
 
Charttrader, agreed. I amn't huge into small caps anyway although I was kind of hoping that the spread wouldn't be too bad for the times when I wanted to get involved. Wanted to make sure that for bigger and busier stocks that there was no risk of getting stung on the spread as I thought certain brokers had preferred market makers (and would execute your order through them regardless).

Once you get to high enough figures (on a per trade basis) i become less concerned about shaving a few euro off the transaction cost of the trade than I am making sure the spread is close enough that I'm not losing too much......
 
Wanted to make sure that for bigger and busier stocks that there was no risk of getting stung on the spread as I thought certain brokers had preferred market makers (and would execute your order through them regardless

If you have a broker in mind, ask if they get payment for order flow, which is what you're referring to (see [broken link removed]. I use IB, which is excellent for executions.

Again, is only an issue with market orders. I always use limit or stop limit orders for entry, market orders when taking a loss.

In general, though, US spreads are very tight. Spreads on Irish stocks are far wider.
 
charttrader said:
BTW, Ameritrade should not be on the aforementioned list - they no longer accept Irish clients.
Click to expand...

Thank you, you are correct, whilst their application form asks you to select country and country of birth, it also requires details of either US citizenship or visa details - so you are fully right, i've removed it from the list.
 

Should this not be the other way around if your less active you would tend to use Market orders?
 
Warren said:
Should this not be the other way around if your less active you would tend to use Market orders?
Click to expand...

Warren
Would have been better if I wrote 'or market orders' rather than 'and market orders'. My point was twofold;
1 - Very active traders need to be much more conscious of execution because, if you're trading several times a day (or even several times a week), all those pennies add up.
2 - If you're using limit rather than market orders, a DAT broker isn't necessary.

Do less active traders/investors tend to use market rather than limit orders? Probably.
 
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