Buying US ETFs in a Rakuten Account: Confused
Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 7:19 am
I made the probable mistake of buying Vanguard US ETFs in my Rakuten NISA. I know where I went wrong, sort of, but I still don’t understand the fees and wonder if anyone else does.
I’m a longtime online investor, but new to online investing in Japan. With the Rakuten account newly opened I spent hours trying to get clear information about fees for non-domestic buys. FX fees were easy to find and looked OK, but a clear statement about fees for US equities was impossible to find. After more than an hour of clicking around the closest I came was this:
I wasn’t sure I understood what a ‘contract price’ (約定代金) meant, but in an hour of searching it was the closest I’d come to anything comprehensible, and it seemed not bad, if it applied: 0.486% tax included; minimum fee $5.40 tax included; maximum capping out at $21.60.
Went to the buy screen and checked exchange rate and the price for a VTI buy and they were fine, price per share to the penny that listed in a US Ameritrade account open on another computer. Made the buy, made another buy of BND (listed FX the same and again the price per share identical to what Ameritrade was showing), and went to bed.
Woke to find how bad it had been:
Those yellow lines at the bottom are what happened. In both cases the number of shares (数量) and share price (単価) are correct, and the $/¥ FX rate of 109.52 is fine. What is not fine is the 受渡代金, delivery price, i.e., the actual cost of the transaction.
Should be I would have thought simple math:
VTI: 43 X $140.639 X 109.52 = ¥662,320, not ¥697,917.
BND: 51 X $78.86 X 109.52 = ¥440,475, not ¥478,593.
If you run the numbers that works out to an instant loss / fee of ¥35,597 or 5.37% on the VTI buy and ¥38,118 or 8.65% for the BND.
To add to my confusion my 資産合計 (Total assets) report on the front page of the account said this:
I.e., an instant bath for ¥61,109 or 5.54%, not the ¥73,715 or 6.68% shown on the two buy reports combined.
And to add to my confusion further that same 資産合計 report now, 28 hours later, during which time the US market has not been open and the FX rate has hardly moved, says this:
I’m not complaining that for incomprehensible reasons I’m now down only ¥5,439, but I have no idea what has or is happening. I can read Japanese passably well and the Rakuten site isn’t saying.
Can anyone shed light on any of this, beyond that I almost certainly was an idiot for thinking I could buy ETFs listed on the NYSE through a Japanese broker without getting screwed, I mean?
I’m a longtime online investor, but new to online investing in Japan. With the Rakuten account newly opened I spent hours trying to get clear information about fees for non-domestic buys. FX fees were easy to find and looked OK, but a clear statement about fees for US equities was impossible to find. After more than an hour of clicking around the closest I came was this:
I wasn’t sure I understood what a ‘contract price’ (約定代金) meant, but in an hour of searching it was the closest I’d come to anything comprehensible, and it seemed not bad, if it applied: 0.486% tax included; minimum fee $5.40 tax included; maximum capping out at $21.60.
Went to the buy screen and checked exchange rate and the price for a VTI buy and they were fine, price per share to the penny that listed in a US Ameritrade account open on another computer. Made the buy, made another buy of BND (listed FX the same and again the price per share identical to what Ameritrade was showing), and went to bed.
Woke to find how bad it had been:
Those yellow lines at the bottom are what happened. In both cases the number of shares (数量) and share price (単価) are correct, and the $/¥ FX rate of 109.52 is fine. What is not fine is the 受渡代金, delivery price, i.e., the actual cost of the transaction.
Should be I would have thought simple math:
VTI: 43 X $140.639 X 109.52 = ¥662,320, not ¥697,917.
BND: 51 X $78.86 X 109.52 = ¥440,475, not ¥478,593.
If you run the numbers that works out to an instant loss / fee of ¥35,597 or 5.37% on the VTI buy and ¥38,118 or 8.65% for the BND.
To add to my confusion my 資産合計 (Total assets) report on the front page of the account said this:
I.e., an instant bath for ¥61,109 or 5.54%, not the ¥73,715 or 6.68% shown on the two buy reports combined.
And to add to my confusion further that same 資産合計 report now, 28 hours later, during which time the US market has not been open and the FX rate has hardly moved, says this:
I’m not complaining that for incomprehensible reasons I’m now down only ¥5,439, but I have no idea what has or is happening. I can read Japanese passably well and the Rakuten site isn’t saying.
Can anyone shed light on any of this, beyond that I almost certainly was an idiot for thinking I could buy ETFs listed on the NYSE through a Japanese broker without getting screwed, I mean?