An English-language option! Not so fast…
At my workshop on Sunday someone mentioned Interactive Brokers as an example of a stockbroker working in English in Japan.On Monday I filled in an application form online to open an account.
Then Andrew Hallam wrote about them here today.
And they called me up later this morning to confirm a couple of things so they could finish processing my application.
So far so good. They seem legit and easy to work with in English. That’s not the whole story though. I will write a post about them once my account is opened and go into some of the pros and cons I am already noticing about the company.
Anyone else have an account with Interactive Brokers?
UPDATE: You can now read my review of Interactive Brokers for residents of Japan.
Thanks Ben, I read some of Andrew’s posts.
Currently I have an account with Scwhab. Opened it from Japan in 2008. They froze it in 2012 after my company moved to another broker for our stock options. Schwab told me “sell all the assets and close the account”. I had to battle for a week to get it unfrozen and keep the account.
Now I’m in the US with a plan to go back to Japan at some point. I’m worried Schwab will try to close the account again in the future, which would be destructive from a tax and retirement perspective.
The only thing that really shields me, I assume, is that I’m not a US citizen.