I spoke to the IB desk down in Sydney in late 2004 and they said Australian stocks would be available for trading through its TWS platform by mid 2005 and ive asked around again and no one knows nothing about it. The ASX does $2Billion a day in trades and we have the highest participating country in the stock market per capita not to mention a market that has been going up 20% a year for the last 3 years, so IB should be opening its doors. Maybe def or ibsoft or some other ib rep could tell us when they are going to intergrate down-under stocks? thanks.
The problem is usually not the broker(s) but the way a particular country and it's exchanges structure their rules to "accommodate" foreign firms and traders. Many issues usually have to be ironed out on many fronts (legal, tax, technology, risk, etc.).
i realise that, but the ASX has been a listed stock for over 5 years now and is doing extremely well because of there abilitity to open up a transperant platform to those domestic and offshore. i think they signed on 22 new brokers from abroad last year.
JohnnySharp, We're working on ASX. It isn't as simple as turning on a switch. Factors such as licensing, regulatory and personnel requirements much be considered. The best I can say at this point is that it is in the cards but I am unable to provide any info other than I'm hoping we can offer them sooner rather than later.
If I'm not mistaken, the majority of those brokers are being set up to serve those in Australia already. They all want aussie tax and bank docs in order to open accounts. IB is trying to *integrate* whole exchanges/countries into their system. It's very different. For example etrade has a brokerage in australia. How about trading aussie stocks from your US etrade account? Not possible. And I believe the main culprit is the tax/profit repatriation issue. Many countries have rules against yanking profits out. Also they're interested in foreign brokers helping to further establish their home market for their populations and are not too crazy about giving any edges to foreigners unless they're "investors".