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Originally Posted by penguin  As surprising as it seems, I just arrived in HK and have been looking at my US (online) brokerage for that information. Their website states that you can invest in different markets and that you can invest from anywhere in the world (being they are online). I do not know how much capital need to open this type of account, because I have had an small investment account with them for almost 2 years, but I'm sure you can find probably find that info on the website. The name of the company is Interactive Brokers, you might just want to google them and get the information off of their website. Hope this helps.
Good luck in your investments, wherever you go! |
For US citizens overseas, your option (invest via a US on-line broker while you're based overseas) is the recommended way to go about it. US brokers already have processes in place to report capital gains with the IRS and thus, it does not really matter to them where in the world the (US citizen) account holder is based.
Note: some brokers charge extra fees to send paper statements to overseas addresses - switch to paperless option to avoid those charges.
The reason many non-US financial institutions do not allow US citizens to open investment accounts with them is because they would have to put in processes to handle US-specific reporting requirements for tax purposes: The US is one of very few countries that requires its citizens to file tax returns (and pay taxes) in the US no matter where they live in the world and thus, international banks have to report to the IRS capital gains and dividends from stock trades made by US citizens. They do not have to do it for citizens of most other countries. Thus, it is easy to understand that they'd rather avoid the hazzle (and cost) associated with this practice and put in internal policies that bar US citizens from opening investment accounts with them. This restriction does not apply to savings / checking accounts or time-deposits.
