It was actually not my intention to suggest that Alpaca is a particularly good fit for Swiss Mustachians. But personally I like it a lot, and wanted a dedicated place to discuss it.
Please note that you don’t have to use the API. You can buy and sell manually via their web dashboard.
US-brokers in general are of interest for Swiss investors for various reasons:
- Extremely low or even zero commissions, compared to the rest of the world
- Solid regulatory environment and insurance (FDIC, SIPC)
- Broker diversification (like ETF diversification)
- Innovation. US-brokers were the first to offer overnight trading, and the NASDAQ plans 24/5 trading for the 2nd half of 2026. The rest of the world is usally playing catch-up.
- Many users on this forum are not pure Mustachians, have a background in IT and/or follow a more active investment style
Margin:
- If you plan on using margin, in my opinion you are already moving away from being a typical Mustachian. The federal rulings state that of the 5 criteria of Kreisschreiben 36, only the trading volume and foreign financing matter nowadays.
- That being said, Alpaca offers margin like every other US-broker (fee schedule). I believe the US regulations limit leverage to 1:4 for daytrading and 1:2 for buy and hold.