Hi. I would like to invest in IWDA + EIMI but haven't opened account for overseas trading yet. I've read in somewhere in the thread that IB is preferred over Saxo mainly because of the fees.
IB is the current low cost leader for regular savers who are long-term investors and who have "medium" or "large" savings flows.
I am looking at long term passive investment for these which means, most likely I will likely just invest 10K lump sum and would not look at it for a while.
Then you don't fit the description listed above. You're not a regular saver.
I also read somewhere that IB will charge maintenance fee at 10USD per month.
No, that's the minimum monthly commission for total account values ranging from US$2,000 to US$99,999.99 inclusive. All commissions are subtracted first from the minimum. There is no separate account maintenance fee as such.
If your only savings flow is a "once and done" $10,000 investment, then IB is not a good fit....
....Nor is Saxo. Standard Chartered is likely going to work better for you. Standard Chartered charges a minimum US$10.70 per IWDA and EIMI trade, so you'd incur US$21.40 in commission charges, possibly a bit more for one of the trades if the non-minimum commission charge becomes more relevant. Thereafter there's no custodial fee, unlike Saxo.
Of course, if the investment value reached $100K or frequent monthly trading, using IB will be more cost effective.
Not "frequent." Just one IWDA buy per month is comparatively attractive at IB. If you're working for a living and earning monthly wages, that's what you'd typically do anyway. If your monthly savings flow is "low," OK, "batch up" and use Standard Chartered. Otherwise....
Am I missing anything out on IB vs Saxo?
Yes, currency. IB's currency conversion costs are ridiculously low. Standard Chartered and Saxo, quite a bit higher.
In terms of the split, would 8K IWDA and 2K EIMI (total 10k) makes sense?
No, not really. You're probably better off placing one buy order for VWRA. Then you have no rebalancing to do between developed economy stock market and emerging economy stock market stocks -- VWRA handles that all for you, internally in the fund -- and you'll reduce your commission at Standard Chartered by roughly US$10. VWRA has a 2 basis point per year higher management charge than IWRA, but that's very reasonable indeed for the automatic rebalancing and initial commission savings. The initial commission savings is worth about 10 basis points before compounding, so that pays for roughly 6 years of that +2 basis point VWRA management fee. Automatic rebalancing then takes over from there as an ongoing benefit.
Side note: i am doing DCA on G3B and MBH with a bank.
Great, even better than great. So why aren't you planning to DCA the global stock index fund leg, too?
