It was just an example about trading fees. I have VTI and VEA as my two biggest passive holdings at the moment. Slightly cheaper in terms of TER than VT, and no EM - i’m pessimistic about China.
Vanguard has ETFs for particular market segments, you can mix and match however you like.
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Approximating_total_international_stock_market (this page talks about their US mutual funds mainly, but each usually has an ETF equivalent as well)
Hi, I have another problem. I’m trying to buy some USD following Mr @_MP’s instruction, and I get following warning:
I’m not sure what is a reasonable price that I should put in the LMT to exchange the USD asap.
Ok, I’ve used the price that Google showed me:
https://www.google.ch/search?q=1+usd%2Fchf&oq=1+usd%2Fchf&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.2840j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Then, I’ve just hit “Accept and Continue”, and then I got this:
Next, I’ve got a warning that my transaction won’t be executed until today 17:00 - hit OK. (By the way, do you know what’s the cause of the delay?)
And next warning:
Hit OK again.
Now I see the order and I’m waiting for execution:
Now I will wait a bit (to ~18:00), and if it won’t work, then I’ll hit “Cancel” and try different price. I’ll let you know if it works. Please also let me know what are your experiences with currency exchange.
I think I know what is the problem. When I clicked “Decline” first time it switched back from “FXCONV” to “IDEALPRO”. Now, I pushed “Cancel” and I’m waiting for the order to get canceled. At the moment, the status of the old order is “Cancel requested” and I can’t make a new order with “FXCONV” because it says that I don’t have enough cash.
Ehh… CT was way easier to handle. 
Update:
No, it was actually FXCONV:
Anyway, now it’s still in status ‘Cancel requested’. If I won’t get the money back today, I’ll have to call them tomorrow. Damn, IB interface is really confusing. CT is so much easier.
Market’s closed, it’s weekend
And pay 0.5% in commission? No thanks
So they will cancel it when the market will be opened? It doesn’t make sense. I should be able to cancel that order anyway.
It’s actually 0.2% commission + 0.5% for currency exchange.
I don’t know, I try to never trade outside of market hours, at market open and close - it’s too volatile usually
In any case even if the order goes through you’ll only lose a couple of bucks in commission +/- market risk.
Ok, thanks for the info. I’ll wait to tomorrow then. By the way, which exchange opening time do you mean? NYSE? So according to this wiki article it’s basically 15:30-23:00 (UTC+2h - for summer Central European time zone)?
It depends on whatever asset is it that you’re trying to buy
Most currency pairs can be traded 24 hours a day, but only on business days
Stocks - depends on exchange.
So at what time do you usually buy VT? 15:30-23:00?
Sometime intraday. I’d avoid especially market open, first half an hour or so, too volatile. Market close can also be volatile, but less.
Would it make sense to use BYX (BATS) instead of the smart exchange routing on IB ?
Even if IB has low cost, the interface is not user friendly and the support is quite bad.
My point was to show that trading costs practically nothing on US exchanges, it’s at the level of minute volatility and can be basically ignored. What point is it to saving a couple of bucks by going to the right exchange if the next minute the asset you wanted to buy rises (or drops) in price by a few hundred bucks? It matters only for HFT and day traders.
On european exchanges, on other hand, trading and stamp duties can be a quite significant cost, 0.1 - 1%
This time it worked out. Thanks @hedgehog one more time for your invaluable and indispensable comments and advices!
Hello
I read your blog post, excuse my ignorance, I am new to this. But is this correct that non-Swiss domiciled brokers like IB do not have to charge a Swiss stamp duty? Why does the law exclude foreign brokers? Will this apply even when investors buy/sell shares with a Swiss ISIN? Thanks in advance.
Yes
Better question is why this medieval thing not yet abolished completely
Yes, no swiss stamp duty as long as you bank with a non-CH broker.
Thank you for your answers. It seems odd as this law puts Swiss brokers at a pretty big disadvantage.
I just found an article on Finews, dated July 2017, about IB applying for a full Swiss banking license. Does it mean that they will become a Swiss domiciled securities dealer and therefore will have to charge the Swiss stamp duty?
It means nothing without further details, all depends on how exactly it’ll be implemented if at all
Right now as a swiss resident you will be a customer of IB UK, a non-swiss domiciled entity, and don’t have to worry about any swiss stamp duty no matter whether you’re trading swiss securities or not
Thank you for your comments.
