Banking advice required.....

Totally non hifi related, but in for a penny.....

Is it possible to have a US bank account and not be a US citizen?

I have some US stocks that I want to sell as the price is right, but the exchange rate is very poor. I plan to sell and hold the cash in a US account until the rates improve.

thanks //lamboy

 

it was a while ago - when i was living there. but with recent terrorism paranoia and money laundering crackdowns it may not be possible any longer. however it should be possible to open a usd account at an english bank. and then transfer the funds when the rates improve. you might get hit by charges though as the uk banks are on one for charging their customers at the moment. some may have minimum balances which make things difficult too. a quick google suggests citi bank would be one to look at more closely.

 

Paypal allows you to hold balances in different currencies.

 

You mean the fx rate that your broker is offering you is very poor, or the $/£ fx rate generally is very poor?

My advice would be to sell the stock and cash out now. Equities generally have had a good run over the last three years and a correction is due. Vol always spikes towards year-end as volume/liquidity drops off. I reckon a lot of asset managers will be locking-in 2006's gains and taking profits in December.

The $ will be weak for a very long time to come. I doubt it will come south of 1.75 for a couple of years at least, and in all likelyhood, it will depreciate further (2.20+ is a distinct possibility).

Your post-inflation return on a sterling deposit should be slightly better than on a dollar deposit, and most UK banks/brokers will charge higher fees to administer a dollar account.

 

I mean the $/£ rate generally (and smith barney take their cut as well, then Lloyds will take their cut). I didnt realise how this worked until I sold a few hundred shares earlier this year.

2.2! wowzers. It has been pretty steady for a while. My greed gene keeps telling me its gotta come down and help me out. I think I'll take your advice and take the money and run.

 

Lordy, you use a high-street bank (who then uses an intermediate broker!) to trade your shares? Yep, that'll be expensive alright! Have you not considered going down the web discount broker route? Plenty of them have direct US execution ability. But I'm guessing you're the buy & hold type and don't do much trading?

Sterling rallied its socks of vs. the $ yesterday - went from 1.949 to 1.968 - almost two "handles". A pretty rare occurance in these low-volatility times! There was a lot of negative news flow yesterday though.

Best sell now mate and come back in when things have corrected 5-10%.

Rgds,
DT

 

These are company shares so I dont have any choice on broker, I trade them using Smith Barney and send the £x to my current account. SB do the conversion to sterling.

Ive been sitting on these babies for 4 years and im looking at >10X upside, but I know my companies strong and the value should increase.