Price, exchange rates and delivery date on foreign stocks

[jcc]

I decided to try a bit of value investing with a small percentage of my portfolio.

Anyway, on buying us stock a couple questions came up that I could spend hours googling but am hoping someone could give a quick overview of instead...

When you buy a stock with rakuten(and by the look of things, SBI too), you get a 国内約定日 and　受け渡し日. Today it would result in a kokunai yakutei of next monday(next business day) and ukewatashi a few days later.

For domestic stocks you'd just get the "price settlement" on the same day, basically as soon as you find a seller that matches your bid. Does the delaying of your 国内約定日 somehow affect the price you're getting, or is it just some kind of processing delay put in between the opening and closing of the various stock markets? Put simply, if I trade US stocks while US markets are open, will the trades be executed very quickly or is there going to be a significant delay?

And regarding the handing over day, since you don't actually "own" the stock until that day, are you unable to do anything with it until that point? I have no intention to start day-trading but I am somewhat curious about this.

Finally, what have people been doing to minimize fees and exchange costs? I'm using rakuten though recommendation for other brokers would be useful to others I'm sure. I'm the fees appear to be ~.5% on the final order for rakuten, with minimum and maximum cost cops of $5/20, so orders below $1000 would cost more in fees and over $4000 you would be cutting down the relative costs in fees.

[captainspoke]

I'm not sure, but you might be referring to settled vs unsettled funds. (funds in the sense of money/cash)

In the US, it works like this: https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/invest ... led-funds/ Maybe something similar happens in Japan, too?

For a US account, you can enable margin trading if you'll be trading quickly enough that using unsettled funds would become an issue.

[jcc]

Hmm, that could be it, maybe. I'm just (considering) trading in a rakuten account, definitely not looking to trade on margin.

So, I get the impression it's only really relevant if I've sold something... If I buy up something else with the proceeds I'd at least be expected to hold onto it until the previous sale was completed.

[adamu]

So, I get the impression it's only really relevant if I've sold something... If I buy up something else with the proceeds I'd at least be expected to hold onto it until the previous sale was completed.

I have a feeling that making another trade is OK, it's if you want to withdraw the money that you have to wait. Could be wrong though!

[jcc]

Finding myself unable to pull the plug on this as there's some mystery fees that I can't figure out the source for.

Say for example microsoft: the current price is 108.14. Rakuten is quoting an exchange rate of 111.59 yen to the dollar, and say I want to buy 10 shares? Using a buy order it comes out at an estimated cost of 127,338 yen.

But just calculating it out and adding the rakutens .486% fee( which is capped between 5-20 dollars) that should come out to 108.14 * 111.59 * 10 * 1.00486 = 121259, so immediately starting down 6000. Where is that difference coming from? The inefficiency is scaling by stock numbers, buy 20 and it's a 12000 difference, so it's not just a flat fee.

That's a 5% cost straight on top which seems incredibly steep, what am I missing?

[RetireJapan]

Does the fee persist after the trade? I know Rakuten adds an extra amount to the quote in case the currency or price changes before it goes through, but I think they then process it using the actual prices at the time.

[jcc]

Does the fee persist after the trade? I know Rakuten adds an extra amount to the quote in case the currency or price changes before it goes through, but I think they then process it using the actual prices at the time.

You're right!

I finally tracked it down... If you're using exchange rate, they quote it at 1.05* and refund the difference based on the actual exchange rate when the order is processed

[adamu]

Does the fee persist after the trade? I know Rakuten adds an extra amount to the quote in case the currency or price changes before it goes through, but I think they then process it using the actual prices at the time.

You're right!

I finally tracked it down... If you're using exchange rate, they quote it at 1.05* and refund the difference based on the actual exchange rate when the order is processed

FYI this came up before. Good to see another confirmation of the 5% buffer.

[robster]

I am not sure if this is the same topic but .... on SBI, when purchasing a mutual fund, I have found that an order placed on a given day is not always settled at the price at the end of that day, but the price a few days later.
On Oct 31 I placed an order for ニッセイ外国株式インデックスファンド, quite excited that it had slumped down to well under 15,000, it was still 14,947 at end of business Oct 31, but this morning I see the trade completed at 15,247, today's price. A few days delay meant I failed to take advantage of the temporarily low price.
Is this just how it is, Japan being slow? or is there a way to get the order on the day you place it?

[ivanpgs]

Hi,

It happened the same to me (I am using Tsumitate NISA in SBI). Place a couple or orders on 30th of October to be executed on 31th October, or at least that was what appeared in the SBI interface (the execution date). I did not see the money until a couple of days later, on 2nd November, and I guess that the price was also from that day.

But I could not find any place to search for the history of the executed orders, prices, etc. Could you tell me where did you find that one?

I am also using SBI for iDeCo, but I find their interface much easier to understand. Also the prices of the funds are updated with only one day of delay.