I am writing on behalf of a family member. IB wrote them they are not allowed to invest in US ETFs because they are residing in Europe, although they are US cititizens. Is that correct? Doesn't seem logical to me. Thank you.
Not sure about this particular case but many countries many exchanges many brokers have various types / kinds of restrictions for various types of people for various types of products I think the CANNOT-TRADE LIST from IB is a few thousand pages long.
Since 2018, ordinary investors in the European Union cannot invest in US ETF. The only way out is to use VPN to login into account.
The options on us etfs are legal in the eu. So sell ITM put to get long and sell ITM call to get flat or short.
It's probably the residence not the citizenship, and I don't think VPN can do the job, as the account is probably set-up under eu regulation and with a eu residency. Not even the post Brexit UK came out of mifiid... It wouldn't make any sense that an account would be under the regulation of user birthplace or citizenship, instead of the current residence and account location.
I can trade in US ETFs on my CFD platform -.- However, banned on my brokers. It sucks, but slowly a lot of European ETFs that replicate the US ones have sprung up.