Newbie Help?

[sparkz]

Ok experienced and hopefully wealthy traders. I have dabbled with stocks in the past (10 years ago) and have done alright. I want to get back into it again (regular stocks to start) but am wondering if there is any benefit to trading in the US?

Do you pay any taxes like stamp duty in the US? Doesn't the conversion back to pounds almost amount to that anyway? I seems quite popular I'm just wondering why.

Also, can anyone point me on a good book or web site on modern trading methods. Something which takes into account internet trading.

Many thanks

Mark

 

[Skimbleshanks]

IMO USA stocks are easier to trade mainly because a) there are more to choose from, around 8,000 and b) many of them have much higher volume than UK ones which means that they're easier to get in and out of and technical analysis works better the higher volume the stock has.

There's no stamp duty when trading US stocks. If you are using a direct access broker such as IB you can open your base account in US dollars or GBP. If you open in USD then conversion can work both for and against you, depending on the exchange rate.

You can also trade US stocks through UK-based spreadbetting companies if you are concerned about conversion costs.

This site has lots of info, although you may have to use the search facility to sort out the wheat from the chaff. There are plenty of books out there, but none of them helped me when it came to trading on the Internet - it was just a case of try it out and see for yourself, so you may wish to bung a small amount into a spreadbetting account just to acclimatise yourself first. Another good one is hardrightedge.com

If you're trading US stocks on an end-of-day basis then the best software for this is probably tc2000.com which is for charting and includes a scanning facility. And then you may need an intraday charting program in which case you may wish to use Sierra from sierrachart.com which works on the feed from the IB brokerage if you have an account with them. interactivebrokers.co.uk

Many of the spreadbetting companies provide their own intraday charts.

Oh, forgot to say - welcome to T2W.

 

[sparkz]

Thanks for that. I'll check out IB and that software. I hadn't heard of tc2000 until now but it looks interesting.

I see IB has an API for developers which I might be interesting also...

Mark