So USD has dropped by 8% against SGD?
No. The USD has dropped 8% against the
US dollar index basket. And that's compared to the dollar's highs of the year, which were in the middle of a massive panic; since the start of the year, pre-corona, the USD's dropped about 3.5%.
The USD is
stronger against SGD since the start of the year, by about 2.5%; and compared to its high of the year (on March 23rd, when everyone was screaming and running around like chickens with their heads cut off—remember that?), it's about 5.5% weaker, not eight percent.
Over the course of the year, the USD has strengthened against the SGD by about 8.5% (from 1.3450 to 1.46), and then weakened by about 5.5% (from 1.46 to 1.3750, where it is now), for a total of about 2.5% stronger.
If you'd fallen into a coma on December 31st and woken up this morning, you'd think "oh it's been a pretty quiet year in SGD, it's moved a couple of percent".
If a retail investor (not trader) uses limit orders and does not day trade, would HFT make any adverse effect to a buy or sell transaction?
Hmmm... it's very second-order, but I can see HFT having a negative effect, especially if you're posting large limit orders.
A large limit order, to buy or to sell, sticks out like a sore thumb in the order book. It's very easy for automated traders to front-run a big order like that (I can dive into how, if people are interested?), which means your order is less likely to get filled, even if you're just posting limit orders.
The solution to this is to slice-and-dice your order into smaller parts, either manually or with an execution algo of your own.
might be an alternative worth considering for US ETF and all ?
No, c'mon, don't be suckered in by the zero-fee brokerages.
If you're a buy-and-hold investor, you shouldn't be buying US ETFs in the first place, because you're going to get railed on dividend taxes.
If you're an active trader, you should be using Interactive Brokers, because you can control your execution instead of letting your broker send it all to the Citadel flow monster.
Zero-fee equity brokerages are for suckers.
And this is another thing:
Seriously guys. Its GST on your commission. Do you trade that big to be this concerned?
This is absolutely right. Look, I'm all for cutting commissions, but IBKR's commissions are so much lower than any other broker's that the GST literally doesn't make a difference. It's a few cents on the average trade, and you're doing that trade, what, once a month?
IBKR is the best broker out there in terms of low cost and great execution; they're rock-solid safe, they have excellent risk management; and now that they have a Singaporean office, you can use them to buy and sell Singaporean stocks as well, at the lowest rates on the street. Use them.
