I am new to stock trading so excuse me ignorance. I was planning to place a buy order on 200 shares of Apple stock. The current asking price is about $US100. I was surprised to see the Estimated Brokerage incl. local charges, GST & FX buffer comes to $597.86. Is this normal. I was expecting about $70.
Etrade brokerage seems a bit steep
- Thread starter Nudist
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Value Collector
Have courage, and be kind.
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That does seem high, but you are trading $20,000 worth of stock, so it depends how your broker is charging and also what they charge for currency conversion.
Some brokers will advertise international brokerage fees for say $100, but this is on trades up to $10,000 larger trades are charged on a percentage basis which means over $10,000 trades get more expensive, also that advertised $100 doesn't include currency conversion, which may be another 1% depending on the broker..
I would just call them and have them explain it.
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You can buy an ETS for AAPL on the ASX. The code is ETSAPL. I have never really looked into the mechanics of them so can't offer much help beyond that.
Thanks for the tip. The fees are $30 for the same transaction which is way more like it. I notice that the ETS bid price is $112.860 compared to $US99.18. Am I correct to assume that the former is listed in $AU??
So_Cynical
The Contrarian Averager
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Thanks for the tip. The fees are $30 for the same transaction which is way more like it. I notice that the ETS bid price is $112.860 compared to $US99.18. Am I correct to assume that the former is listed in $AU??
It would appear so since its an ASX listed stock its a little hard to price it in USD.
http://www.asx.com.au/PDF/11-033ABM.pdf
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Interactive Brokers, though cumbersome to open an account, are excellent for US trades. Their brokerage is USD0.005 per share, with a minimum of USD1 per trade. For high value shares like Apple, this is a pittance and works out at 200 X USD0.005 or USD1, which happens also to be the minimum per trade.
They do have a monthly minimum commission fee of USD10.00, which is across all markets (e.g. Australian, US etc.). If your total commission for the month for all your trades (across all markets) is less than USD10.00, they will charge you the difference at month end (e.g. your total commission for the month is USD6, you pay an additional USD4 at month end).
To give you an idea. In September I bought 4 lots of Apple (each lot 50 shares) and 200 of one other US stock. Each Apple purchase had a commission of USD1 (USD0.25 but since there is a minimum per trade of USD1, each trade was rounded up to USD1). The other stock also had a commission of USD1 (200 bought), so my total commission for September was just USD5.00 for those 5 separate transactions. I will be charged an additional USD5 (at the applicable AUD rate) to meet minimum monthly commission. The minimum monthly commission is charged in your base currency which is AUD in my case.
IB have a branch in Australia with whom you can deal with directly.