# International trading vs. ASX listed international ETFs



## yeders (28 April 2014)

Hi there,

Long time watcher, but first post!

I've been looking around for a while, and there seems to be quite a lot of fees involved with trading NYSE listed companies via a broker here, and a bit of hassle trading them via say optionsexpress optionshouse etc.

My current plan was to invest in BRK-B via optionshouse, but then I did a comparison between BRK-B and  iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) and there wasn't really much difference.

Is there benefit in going direct to the NYSE with the hassel, fees, exchange rate fees etc, then going with various ETFs?

I know I've listed stocks above, but my comparison is primarily around direct vs ETFs

Thanks


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## qldfrog (28 April 2014)

yeders said:


> Hi there,
> 
> Long time watcher, but first post!
> 
> ...



I used ETF for brk (ETSBRK from memory, the trouble I had was that there was not much action and as such you are not really aware of the actual price of your etf
of course you can do the us aud conversion on the latest US price and should be more or less right but a bit annoyaing when setting your buy/sell price;
My understanding isthat the fluidity is there so if you put a sell at the right level, it will be bought by the ETS manager at the proper price but still a bit weird


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## yeders (29 April 2014)

qldfrog said:


> I used ETF for brk (ETSBRK from memory, the trouble I had was that there was not much action and as such you are not really aware of the actual price of your etf
> of course you can do the us aud conversion on the latest US price and should be more or less right but a bit annoyaing when setting your buy/sell price;
> My understanding isthat the fluidity is there so if you put a sell at the right level, it will be bought by the ETS manager at the proper price but still a bit weird




Interesting!
Thank you for the info. I wasn't aware of these ETIS.

I've looked up ETSBRK through my broker, but there is only one buyer and zero sellers. Is this normal for there to be practically zero activity? Are 'shares' offered a different way?

Thanks


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## qldfrog (29 April 2014)

yeders said:


> Interesting!
> Thank you for the info. I wasn't aware of these ETIS.
> 
> I've looked up ETSBRK through my broker, but there is only one buyer and zero sellers. Is this normal for there to be practically zero activity? Are 'shares' offered a different way?
> ...




that is what I was opointing to basically if you offer for sale at the correct USD AUD conversion of the last price of brk in the US + a slight safety margin the ETF mmanager set, the etf will add liquidity and buy your share.
But seem illiquid + you do not really know the current value of your share until you try to sell and most probably too low


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