DoddDisciple

I was mistaken. They both seem to hold about 100+ issues, which is more reasonable. The international one know holds about 10% EPA like you say. I recall looking at the US one earlier and it holding a similar amount of SPY or something similar. The fee structure also has the potential to go up dramatically on the international one since gross is 3%, but they are provided a credit. Honestly, I'd look at something like RZV which is a pure value index. It holds a similar number of domestic stocks, actually has a lower average market cap at sub 1 billion, and the expense ratio is maybe 0.3%. In the morningstar database, there are only 8 funds with sub $250M average market cap. No international at all. If you expand to sub $1B, a couple funds with international focus are there, but most have loads. What I'd like to see, more than anything else, is an international index or quant/mechanical fund with a small bent. Maybe one's available if I screen via the premium Morningstar stuff. I know the world's a little more complicated, with a lot of US firms generating their revenues overseas, but I don't see how the rest of the world is so ignored.

Any idea in regards to cost? Thanks :)

A mechanical strategy seems interesting to me as well. A few questions/thoughts: Can you take data, particularly from the balance sheet, at face value from a place like FT screener? Is there a place that aggregates all the EDGAR-like sites or is corroborating the numbers not necessary? Screener.co and value-investing.eu are the only two screeners that cover a large swath of stocks (30k-50k names). I was a little surprised at txitxo going for stocks near their 52 week high. Have you compared this with the F score, or is that too hard to calculate for international stocks? Most metrics on the F score actually seem like measure of the momentum of improving fundamentals. What about using Z and M scores to avoid value traps?

Both of Greenblatt's select funds are somewhat confusing to me. The US one holds 800-1000 stocks, which doesn't seem like it can really benefit from its strategy that much. The International one holds around 400, but if I recall, a decent portion (5%-10%) was in SPY, which was odd. What does anyone think of the Perritt microcap funds (they have the smallest average market cap of all funds I think)? PVFIX is also the most graham-like mutual fund I can think of in terms of what they invest in. They're about 50% in cash last I checked.

I'm curious about any information regarding foreign stocks in IRAs as well. I thought the rule of thumb was typically to only hold ADR/pink foreign stocks in IRAs if you could, and save the international trades for taxable. However, it looks like a lot more people are investing overseas in their IRAs in more than just mutual funds, which typically avoid any sort of withholdings if I recall.

Honestly, I'd be willing to pay a little extra for IB in general. I've sent them a few emails and actually gotten reasonable responses. I can't stand a company that makes you call to get anything done. I think this was on another post, but you can take currencies from IB and wire them to Fidelity for the exchanges that IB doesn't cover. Save 2% plus right there. Level 2 quotes, I have to ask, is this only a domestic/US thing or are there level 2 quotes for overseas exchanges too? Any free or paid resources for level 2 quotes aside from datafeeds from IB (and are these datafeeds even for level 2)?

Good luck on lobbying. I don't think it's possible. Oddball on here was only able to get his employer to add some low cost index funds which they should have already offered within his 401k. I've tried to get it added to a family member's account and even complete willingness to pay the piddling $500 fee didn't work. Of course it depends on the size/bureaucracy of your employer. I think Fidelity has some banking actions within their accounts. However, I see that IB has the 2 stage authentication with the USB key. It's not like money in a bank is making anything worthwhile anyway, so I could see just putting cash in IB since it seems like identity theft is almost a non-issue with them. Maybe just get an online bank. A lot of them actually will pay the ATM fees wherever you get cash. I actually try to do everything electronically nowadays if possible since you have to waste time and gas to deposit and take stuff out of banks :P

Haha. I've been following your posts on here in regards to if IB is good or not as well as dealing with captive choices in 401ks. I think almost everyone is giving IB the greenlight, but I have to ask them a few more questions since I'd like to setup no-fee power of attorney management of some family accounts through them too. I was going to use Fidelity for everything, but their fees and the fact that they want to snail mail forms for every single account (and happen to send the wrong form) makes it a pain. I actually had to do power of attorney to then just ASK if a brokerage window was allowed on one account. I couldn't just do a hypothetical (I work for X employer) and get a response, even though I had passwords and account access up at the same time. Anyway, Merrill Edge and also the Wells Fargo account that is similar are supposed to be awful. Most people that work at Wells Fargo don't even know about the account with free trades. I'd avoid both. If you want to use funds, then Fidelity is somewhat reasonable with their NTF and I think only a fee for the initial setup of a fund. Maybe additional payments to the same fund are free, as are selling. IB looks to charge $15 one way. That's not bad and I'm not sure if someone charges less than that. They also say fund purchases are no-load only, so perhaps with a load of 5%, that's waived in IB's case. Not sure. Anyway, thank for scoping out and generating these discussions :)

What ticker should we be looking at for this?

Absolutely true. I'm trying to start an international portfolio of net-net and net-cash stocks, and suffice to say, you can't just take screen results at face value. For example, F, M, and Z scores within something like screener.co can differ since a lot of international companies only file yearly or twice per year. I'm going to start with FT screener with some novel basic screens like P/B less than 1, less than 0.5, and P/E less than 5. I'm not too familiar with each country or exchange's EDGAR equivalent, so I am hoping that the data listed on Financial Times is pretty reliable in aggregate for these beasties.

Yeah, I would like to have Vanguard Index Funds available. The Fidelity alternatives are pricier. Here's a question. Is there any problems in holding an international index fund in an IRA/401k/other retirement account? You don't have to worry about filing to get extra taxes paid on dividends overseas back do you? Can the answer to the above be extended to international based mutual funds in general? Thanks :)

I'm dealing with the same problem, except through Fidelity. It sickens me that they won't let me pay $500, $1k, hell even $2k to access this brokerage window option. I guess they need to remind me that it isn't my money and that they need to make their fees on substandard funds :P Anyway, looking at your list, I would say just put everything in the cheaper Vanguard Total International Stock Index you can afford. I don't know if I'd pay a 0.5% of more for a fund that itself holds 200-300 stocks when I can get the same exposure at a cheaper price. I'd prefer a international stock fund with a small and/or value bent, but I haven't seen one offered before. If you had a small cap index and a large cap index (which you do with the S&P 500), you could consider a barbell strategy with half in each and keep the relationship in check with re-balancing whenever you choose.

Are level 2 quotes only for domestic exchanges? Are you aware of any free international offerings or something that's maybe a few hundred a year (but still cheaper than IB, which I don't even know is level 2 quotes or not?) Share lending seems too complicated for me, especially if I'm just going to be getting sleepy little sub $50M stocks anyway.

hyten1: I agree that you have to do a lot more to get 50% returns per year. However, I think net-nets and net-cash bargains remain a good way for someone not interested in devoting their life to generating investment returns. Both provide absolute, rather than relative values, of cheapness. For example, there are always the 10% lowest stocks when it comes to P/E (even if they as a group could be overvalued), but at times, there may be little to no worthwhile net-net investments. Internationally, there should always be enough net-nets for the foreseeable future for a good basket, but that may change as those markets are analyzed in greater detail and opportunities are diminished. Of course, if you expand to net-net being anything current current assets > total liabilities, versus 66% of market cap, then I think they as a group will always exist. Just throwing some thoughts out there :P

To Parsad: Haha, thanks :) I'm not too familiar with forum platforms, but the reason I think quoting with the markups (quote, user, and all that) is better is that the quoted person is notified that you brought them up, making it more likely they'll come back and respond. For example, on other forums, if I quote someone or they quote me, I actually see it in an email and/or on the dashboard for the forum.

Hi, One Idea. I've been struggling with this very thing. I'm not expecting 50% returns at all, but 20% and down sounds mighty satisfying if I have a 50 year investing runway to play with. I have another post on here (quantitative net-net investing) you may want to look at. I've thought about it a little more and there are some other metrics I'd like to look at/analyze, but in short, I think net-net and net-cash (negative enterprise) investing can potentially be the bulk investment strategy if one goes internationally. I'm leaning towards taking my USD, splitting it among 5 or 6 major currencies, and then buying baskets (say 10) of net-nets per exchange I'm interested in. I hold for at least a year (maybe less for something that's already gone down like 80%-90% for the tax savings) and up to 2-3 years. Each basket is on its own timeline, removing, to me, a lot of the overall volatility of the portfolio. For example, say we have another 2008 event. Scary as hell to be down 60%+ and also have everything on the same timetable when you're re-balancing your whole portfolio at the same time. But with this flow, which acts sort of like dollar cost averaging, I think I could stick with it more. The big issues for me come to finding data. I'm playing around with screener.co and other sites, and notice some metrics that I'd like to see, like insider ownership and retained earnings, are nulls, or Zscores that seem incorrect within the screens. Looks like I'll have to do a lot more by hand than I thought, which I guess means net-nets aren't as much of a free lunch as I thought time-wise :)

Awesome. A quick question Parsad: is it possible when writing responses to "quote" just selected areas, rather than "inserting quote" and then deleting what you don't want to quote? Maybe this is a vBulletin only feature, but on other forums, you can highlight the text and a dialog box that says "quote" appears and if clicked, only quotes that section of the message in the reply editor. Thank you!

That's what I thought too. However, I talked with them some and it seems like it would work for me (just investing family's IRA and brokerage accounts from a centralized area). Are any of you using the friends and family account for pro-bono investing? Like say investing a parent's funds? Honestly, though, I'm willing to jump through some hoops to save a couple hundred here and there. There was a post on here about taking IB converted currencies and moving them over to Fido if needed (for some stocks IB doesn't cover), which sounded cool.

Thanks to all the comments so far :) Is there any difference between friends & family and family office accounts? I'm not a RIA and not charging anything. Why would one pick one or the other? Thanks, I really appreciate all the information. Honestly some of it is a little over my head, which is part of the reason that I've thought I should avoid IB. However, I've read on here about people trading international stocks at $200 one way, and I'd just have to put too much to work in a basket purchase to make such costs viable right now. What's been your experience on securities lending? Is it not fooling with if you're not experienced? I know they have a self-managed and a 50/50 split they manage options. Can you explain real time data - this is during the trading day only right? Can you get level 1 and 2 data from like say a day ago for free? Does IB offer any screening tools? I see they had Reuters Worldwide Fundamentals for say $7 monthly. Is this just a database for inputting tickers and getting data or something more? How did you find SSRAP? Was this through a screener? I didn't know they offered preferreds and bonds in the regular stock market. Has does 2 factor login work for say family office accounts?

Since this thread seems to be the IB questions base, here are some lingering ones I'd really appreciate some feedback on: (1) What additional services/data services are recommended? IB charges for data feeds. If you don't buy them, how old are the quotes? Are they selling level 2 quotes in these feeds or something else? Any free alternatives? (2) Is securities lending or the alternative where you lend directly worth it for small international stocks, say $50M-$100M and lower? What's the demand and rates like? (3) Is there any real difference between friends & family and family office accounts if you aren't a RIA and aren't charging fees? How does logins/security work with the USB 2-step authentication in either of these accounts?

Some interesting thoughts on the microcap space. Thanks to you all! I have some lingering thoughts however, mainly related to data: (1) Insider Ownership % - I know for domestic companies that file with the SEC, there are several forms with this information on EDGAR. However, I would prefer just a straight % number instead of looking at the number of shares owned and having to calculate that for each insider. I notice that screener.co doesn't always have insider % all the time in the microcap space (a lot of nulls). I also am not sure how you look up this information for international stocks. (2) Bid/Ask Spread - What's a good place to get this information for micro caps, including international stocks? I'm looking for level 2 since level 1 is typically what is listed on say Google/Yahoo, correct? I know IB is supposed to offer this data at a cost, but are there anywhere free or cheap sources?

Dumb question. Why would you want to hold a foreign stock in an IRA? You can't then offset any foreign taxes, right? However, this is only relevant when it comes to dividend-paying issues isn't it? For example, if you buy a non-dividend paying French stock (which has a 30% withholding) and sell for capital gains, is there any difference in what you can get on your tax return between holding it in an IRA and taxable? What about all those other fees that Fidelity seems to like to charge, such as 1% "stamp tax" for buying a foreign stock? Wow. That's part of the reason I'm exploring IB. That's $160 going in. What would they charge when you want to sell? You'd have to put $32k into that stock to keep transaction costs at half a percent going in. Any reason why you wanted to hold this stock in your IRA vs taxable?

Wow, IB has chat? Honestly wasn't expecting that. I see Fido does too, it's just not mentioned anywhere prominent. The $10/month minimum doesn't sound bad. Just the savings on one currency conversion will pay for that for a while. The $10 per month is per account type though, right? So $10 per an Individual IRA, Roth IRA, and taxable account, i.e., $30 total? Has anyone used the family office feature like I'm trying to use it? Are the data fees necessary? I mainly want to buy and hold a basket of stocks in a country for 1-3 years and then sell. Delayed quotes are free, and I'll enter limit orders, which can be filled partially, slightly below the market order at prices I'm comfortable with. Thanks :)

I've looked through all the posts I could find on IB here and some online, but I still have questions. I've heard that their customer service is awful, but honestly, after looking at the competition, it seems like the savings could be worth any hassle. I'm just wondering how much there is. The main reason I'm thinking about IB is that I want to setup a taxable brokerage for mainly international stocks. Fidelity's 1% forex fee doesn't look that great when IB charges $2-$3. Not to mention that international stock trades in general are lower. They also have a family office option. At first this didn't seem for me, but could I actually use this to setup and manage accounts for immediate family members? Wife, parents, and myself? I'm not charging fees, this isn't an investment plan, and ownership will remain with the accountholders. Also, I don't want to end up generating any weird tax filings/problems by using an account like this. Mainly if I can have everyone setup and fund their own accounts, and then I can manage them through this family office option, that'd help. It looks like IB even has digital trading authorization forms, unlike Fido. In regards to forex, is Fido really as expensive as I am thinking? Does anyone compete with IB on such cheap currency conversions? I've seen Noble Trading recommended alongside IB, but it doesn't look like they get much traffic. I mainly want to buy baskets of international stocks. I'd like to try to keep roundtrip costs at 1%-2%, which is why Fido isn't looking so hot: I'd need too much to buy say a 10 stock basket on a country-by-country basis. I may also buy a basket of unlisted stocks (curated from unlistedstocks.net) - I think receipt of annual reports may be a problem for these sorts of securities at IB. I don't plan on using margin. A slightly better than nothing cash sweep rate would be good. I see IB has a security lending program. I'll mainly be looking at small stocks, say sub $50M, maybe up to $100M. Would this program be worth it? Any experiences? Thanks everyone :)

I haven't pulled the trigger on this strategy and am still thinking about how to go about it in a way that makes the most sense to me. Almost all research on buying net-nets blindly shows double digit returns as a ceiling. I would say that in the real world, things like slippage will drag that return down, but for someone who is interested in the long-run and doesn't care too much about what they are holding, the possibilities are compelling. Txitxo's 7th point is one reason I don't feel like starting right now. I think I need to either broaden my net, say into OTCBB, PINK net-nets curated by hand, or include an international net-net basket, maybe in a fixed 40/60 ratio with domestic. I was even thinking of a global portfolio, where the highest-ranked F-score and insider holdings net-net stocks are bought, but I honestly don't have the capability to simulate that sort of strategy to see how it performs. Looking at this is another reason why I feel like doing this blind is best. I know the periods under study are short, but with net-nets, you may not be able to predict the high-performers and laggards, so why bother trying. I don't know if anyone has looked at Old School Value: http://www.oldschoolvalue.com/stock-screener.php But of the numerous mechanical strategies on there, only NNWC has something approaching a 20% return, and I would say the metrics used (like 6 months re-balancing), may drag down returns somewhat. There are huge swings, both up and down, but I don't know if these would matter as much unless your whole portfolio was in a single "basket" at a given time. I'm still thinking about this topic though, so I appreciate any more comments :)