[Tryst]

Hi IsaTrader, hope you are doing well

I did message something similar a few weeks back but I'm not sure you seen it, so will drop another message here. I know we have touched on this previously but wanted to get a current opinion from yourself on who the best brokers are to use in the UK if you are trading US stocks. I am looking to come away from H&L (Hargreaves Lansdown) as they don't allow me to place stop losses on trades against US stocks. Their FX charge on each trade is a bit high too, but I'd imagine I aint gonna get away from this.

I am currently looking at, and in talks with, Saxo about moving over my accounts (ISA and non-ISA) as these have said I can place stop loses on trades for US stocks and that I can also have a Sub account in an ISA that is denominated in US Dollars which will eliminate the FX charge on each trade (though I am assuming there is some FX applied on the money going in and out of the sub account based on the exchange rates at the time).

I was considering Trading 2-1-2 but heard some horrendous stories about the prices people get when placing a trade...a big no-no when considering trades each and every % placement counts if I want to determine my risk on a trade.

Do you have any notes against UK based brokers you used after previously researching who the best to use for mainly US based stocks?

Thanks

Tryst

For me I settled on Interactive Brokers as it was the only one that offered direct market access at decent pricing for US stocks. Only Degiro compared on pricing, but IB is a much better platform and offers more, and a £1,000 trade for example will cost about 37p per side commission on average and no fx fee. Whereas someone like trading212 now has 0.15% fx fee. Hence 50 trades (opening and closing with no partial positons i.e 100 total trades) would add -15% to your account from the 0.15% fx fees. So hence why I prefer a fixed non percentage fee on IB. As your fees reduce the bigger the size, compared to increasing on platforms with percentage based fees.

However, neither of these offer ISA options. So are taxable. But I decided that that would be preferable, as paying taxes means that you are making a profit.

Nice reply, thanks Isatrader. Indeed the % based fees is what is stinging me on H&L.

The lack of ISA is a bit of a downer, as it means I would have to do some book work for the taxman in my self assessment forms, but I guess if it needs to come to this then that is what it is.

Did you ever try Saxo?

Tryst