A pilot project by E*Trade which begins with 1,000 E-Trade customers this week, allows them to buy, hold and sell ETFs, closed-ended ETFs and stocks in Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and Britain. The rollout is expected to take two months before all customers have access, and could one day expand to 42 international markets.
There is a growing number of ETFs that are not currently listed on U.S. exchanges that ETF investors will now have better access to and at lower costs. Up to now, ETF investors had to call brokers and accept commission fees that topped $100. E-Trade will charge a $20 commission, and also give customers the ability to move U.S. dollar accounts into foreign currencies. The ability to keep the commission low is because E-Trade already has operations set up in 15 countries where customers have access to both local and U.S. stocks.
Wells Fargo recently introduced a plan where 100 ETF trades a year are free and Bank of America offers free trades for investors that maintain a reasonable balance. We are probably not far off from free global brokerage services on all the major exchanges in the world.
By Carl Delfeld of the Chartwell ETF Advisor
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