[Junnifer USA]

Hello,

In the US, we managed our investments with an account in Fidelity Fiancial Services. Other equitable firms are Morgan Stanly, T Rowe Price, Schwab...

I am looking for a firm that offers:
Mutual funds, equity and stock brokerage
Income Funds
The ability to develop a divesified portfolio

I am also hoping to find a firm that offers a premier service, where there is some advice available to clients. Fidelity offered this service in the US.

The banks here, ex BNZ, offer a very narrow range of investments. I am looking for a broader service.

Has anyone had experience here in NZ and able to offer a suggestion? ALso, would be interested in Australian firms operating here

Thanks,
Jennifer

[Bruckner]

UBS has an office in Auckland. I can do some checking at work next Monday and see what they offer.

Emily

[Junnifer USA]

Emily, thanks, that would be great.

ANybdy else have a suggestion. Would like to check out several firms.

Trying to reach retirement...while we can still enjoy it.
Jen

[MarkS]

Cheapest I've found (by a long way) if you want an execution-only broker is www.directbroking.co.nz. They charge NZ$30 per trade on the NZX and AU$29 per trade on the ASX, which isn't bad at all. UBS, Goldman Sachs, etc, do all have offices in NZ, but their broking facilities will doubtlessly be very expensive!

Just to make it clear, I haven't yet opened an account with Direct Broking, although the form is sat on the floor in the study and I'll be sending it off soon. They do seem to have a pretty good reputation on-line though, and I've met a couple of people who use them and like them. They're owned by one of the banks now, think it's ASB but I'm not 100% sure on that.

Looking back at the original question, these guys don't offer mutual funds. I've done a bit of research on the web and it seems to me that mutual funds are VERY expensive in NZ - initial fees of 5% often, high annual fees. Of course, the same is true of the worst funds the world over, but I haven't found anything in NZ yet that matches the cheap funds you can get in the UK (and obviously they're even cheaper in the US). Such is the lack of economy of scale that we face in this country... Personally I wouldn't put money into a mutual fund ever again, unless forced to (e.g. if we transfer our UK pensions over I'll have no choice).

ETFs are a good alternative to funds if you're looking for cheap trackers. There's only five on offer in NZ at the moment, tracking the NZX10; the next 40 (i.e. the NZX50 minus the NZX10); the NZX50 portfolio (like the NZX50, but with any individual holding capped at 5% of the portfolio); plus an Australian large caps and a mid caps tracker. Again, they're not as cheap as UK/US ETFs, but I personally would invest in these over a mutual fund any day.

Diversification is of course a hot issue with the new tax changes that come in making it a bit more expensive to invest overseas. I'm probably going to leave my UK investments in the UK for a good few years, and use Direct Broking to build up local investments with a roughly 75% Australian, 25% NZ mix. But like I said, I haven't actually done anything about it yet, so this is just my thoughts, not advice.

cheers
Mark

[Super_BQ]

Junnifer,

I would consider just leaving your US account open as it would be very difficult if you wanted to open up a US account from NZ (after you arrive). For the past 4 or so years, New Zealand (and several other developed nations) are not allowed to directly open a brokerage account with many of the popular firms in the US (ie. Ameritrade, Scott Trade, E-Trade, etc.) while resident overseas.

Any decent bank/brokerage firm offers online trading so there should be no problem for you to even trade and wire you funds back to the US. Though beware of new FIF disclosures required by IRD for investments made on overseas exchanges (ex-NZ & Australia).

Of course if you intend to leave the US permanently and renounce your US citizenship, then there's no reason to have anything open in the US...

BQ

[MarkS]

Oh yes, definitely leave all US accounts open - there's no way I'm closing down my UK ones. If you're new to the country (since April 06 I think) you have a 48 month relief from taxation on overseas non-earned income, so you don't need to worry about the new FIF regime for a bit longer. I'm going to use that time to learn about the markets here with relatively small sums of money, just in case it does become necessary to move all my money over for tax-efficiency reasons.

Even once you're subject to the FIF rules, you can still have overseas investments with an initial purchase cost of NZ$50,000 (*) without attracting any tax, so long term you might still want to leave a decent chunk of money back home, even if you bring the balance over.

cheers
Mark


(*) each, so effectively double that if you're a couple, although you might need separate accounts then, so not sure how that will work yet

[Bruckner]

I sent you a PM Jennifer.

Emily

[seagulls]

Goldman Sachs operate in New Zealand through JBWere.

[khhill]

Definately keep the US accounts open. Also, if you're going to buy Telecom(or any other NZ stock also listed on US exchanges), it'll be cheaper to buy it from your US account than through your NZ broker.