Trading US Equities and Options

#21
I think regarding trading Options in overseas markets we need more clarity on the RBI norms.

For clarity following link is helpful regarding what resident individuals can opt for while remitting money outside India:

https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_ViewMasCirculardetails.aspx?id=9899#18
Right, I've definitely seen such circulars before. For instance, this one - https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=10192&Mode=0

"6. The permissible capital account transactions by an individual under LRS are:
  1. opening of foreign currency account abroad with a bank;
  2. purchase of property abroad;
  3. making investments abroad- acquisition and holding shares of both listed and unlisted overseas company or debt instruments; 5acquisition of qualification shares of an overseas company for holding the post of Director; acquisition of shares of a foreign company towards professional services rendered or in lieu of Director’s remuneration; investment in units of Mutual Funds, Venture Capital Funds, unrated debt securities, promissory notes;
  4. setting up Wholly Owned Subsidiaries and Joint Ventures (with effect from August 05, 2013) outside India for bonafide business subject to the terms & conditions stipulated in Notification No FEMA.263/ RB-2013 dated March 5, 2013;
  5. extending loans including loans in Indian Rupees to Non-resident Indians (NRIs) who are relatives as defined in Companies Act, 1956."


if one wishes to do intraday or futures. One doesnt need to do in US markets. He can do in NSE.

For options US stocks have more liquidity. Less margin for spreads. Thats the only advantage.
The volumes on US exchanges are significantly higher, so one could reduce impact-costs significantly due to tighter spreads, especially if one is placing larger trades.

The trading-costs would be significantly lower in the US since there's no STT, Stamp Duty & such, which would help in bringing down the break-even point, & one also gets rebates from exchanges for placing limit-orders (although some also offer rebates for market-orders), so the strategies that might yield very little profit or even make losses on NSE, might yield more profit on US exchanges.

One can hold one's stock-trades overnight without incurring many times the trading-costs as we do in India due to higher STT on overnight trades compared to intraday-equity & futures.

Again, I'm not much of an option-trader but what you call the "only" advantage could be a big advantage for some traders (but again, I don't know if options are legal for Resident Indians)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that trading in the US markets is for everyone, maybe it isn't but maybe a lot of medium & large traders/investors might be much better off there for the reasons stated above.

Here's the thing, a trader should just consider how much money they paid in STT & Stamp Duty during the last financial year, & just imagine what would've happened if they could've saved that money somehow; maybe a losing-trader would be in minor profit & an already profitable trader might have even more profit. Maybe the investor-types don't care about these things but I know that most "traders" definitely do. Most importantly, trading-costs negatively affect a trader's trading-psychology, which is why so many traders here are focused on reducing brokerage since they know that they can't do anything to reduce the trading-taxes.... but maybe they can.
 
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#22
US Equity market is the most liquid market in world
Apart from liquidity there are many other factors also which can be a motivating factor to trade US Equities from India
1. It is very less manipulated compared to Indian Equity and commodities exchanges
2. We can trade different commodities ETF as well where we can have higher risk adjusted return compared to the margin system of MCX
3. 1 USD = 65 INR approx
4. From my own experience of both the markets I think it is easier to make 8000 USD trading NYSE than 500000 INR trading NSE, BSE and MCX
 
#23
has anyone tried opening interactive broker account for trading in "NSE and overseas markets ". They only allow cash accounts for indian residents for international markets.
I had a call with them and did enquire about buying options, the customer representative said, that would be allowed . however, i am skeptical with his knowledge. One can try opening a cash account and check if buying options is allowed.
 

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