Trade US markets from UK

[barrysoden]

Hi
Fairly new to trading. Have been trading th US markets for a year or so now. Started with £5000 and would like to bump this up significantly. My only concern is moving funds to my US account and then having to account for exchnage rate fluctuation as a trading cost. Is this viable - is there anyone here that has deposited funds directly into a US based account and trades as such - how do you deal with the exchange rate over time when having to move money back to the UK.

I would prefer to trade US instead of UK stocks as I have the ability to go long or short, have better data availability and stocks that appear to provide better returns for short and medium term trades.

Any ideas or pointers or info welcome. Many thanks

 

[Mr. Charts]

I've been trading US stocks from the UK for many years. I have an interactivebrokers universal account which can be denominated in whichever currency you wish.
Richard

 

[Charlton]

Hi
Fairly new to trading. Have been trading th US markets for a year or so now. Started with £5000 and would like to bump this up significantly. My only concern is moving funds to my US account and then having to account for exchnage rate fluctuation as a trading cost. Is this viable - is there anyone here that has deposited funds directly into a US based account and trades as such - how do you deal with the exchange rate over time when having to move money back to the UK.

Yes - 2 accounts one with Tradestation and one with IB. As Mr Charts says the IB account has a designated base currency e.g GBP(which can be changed at any time) and you can trade in any other currency e.g USD. Like anyone dealing in a currency other than their base currency you need to be aware of the exchange rates and determine the best time to fund your account or withdraw funds.

I would prefer to trade US instead of UK stocks as I have the ability to go long or short, have better data availability and stocks that appear to provide better returns for short and medium term trades.

Any ideas or pointers or info welcome. Many thanks

The main thing to consider are the US daytrader pattern rules. These govern the minimum amount of funds you must retain in the account ($25,000) if your pattern of trading is that of a daytrader. This explained on the IB site

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=margin&p=dt&ib_entity=llc

or on the Tradestation site and this is a US legal requirement:

http://www.tradestation.com/brokerage/requirements.shtm

There is also a need to complete a W8-BEN form and information is shown here on the IB site:

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=tax&p=nonUS-default

Charlton