US shares

fuggly

Hi All,
I was wondering if somebody could recommend a stock broker that will allow me to deal in US shares. I want to deal over the internet directly in the US market, so no telephone dealing and delayed prices...
Advice gratefully received.

marvin

Halifax does American shares £14.95 per trade so anything using the Halifax platform will too as I suspect will most UK based execution only services.

Voyager2002

Can I ask why? I mean, the prospects for Wall Street are not exactly rosy...

marvin

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Can I ask why? I mean, the prospects for Wall Street are not exactly rosy...

It is like the UK market you have to pick and choose which to invest in, quality will prosper in the end.

Aldon

Hi Can you tell me what you do with the dollars ? Do any of the uk banks offer Dollar accounts to avoid us paying exchange rates to cash dollar dividends.....

fuggly

Thanks for for the Halifax recommendation.

Cook_County

You need to ask the financial institution if they and their custodians will become participating FFIs to avoid you suffering the 30% US FATCA withholding tax on gross proceeds from 01/01/13.

digerati

fuggly wrote: »

I was wondering if somebody could recommend a stock broker that will allow me to deal in US shares. I want to deal over the internet directly in the US market, so no telephone dealing and delayed prices...

My advise would be to set up a separate brokerage account with a US-based online company. Why?

Well, if you use a UK brokerage, the fees are really high and you are always swapping into and out of USD, which cuts into any profits you make.

Conversely, if you use a US broker, the fees are much lower (i.e. 1¢ per share with no admin fees or stamp duty tacked on) and more importantly you aren't always swapping currencies. Also dividends and income is credited to your brokerage account or you can often do direct dividend reinvestment at low cost. Most US online brokers are happy to accept foreign account holders and US tax is a breeze - you simply file a W8-BEN when opening the account and pay any taxes in the UK under the double-taxation agreement.

Ask around on MSE for recommendations about getting a US broker so you can compare experiences and costs.

Hope this helps!

marvin

VanillaVanilla wrote: »

Do NOT use the Halifax service

Would you like to expand on why not or is it just your blid prejudice?

Aldon

Very helpful digerati thanks .One other question is how do you get your hands on the cash(dollars) without having to change... ie can you withdraw dollars from this account...?

Fiddlestick

digerati wrote: »

Ask around on MSE for recommendations about getting a US broker so you can compare experiences and costs.

Do you have a recommendation?