With IB these transaction costs are very small.

Ok. One thing I also don't like is that the wire transfers to IB take 3 days to "settle" to avoid people taking it out too quickly. I transferred XX'000 on 01.11.2017, but still 0.00 is "settled cash". When I try and do a trade I get:

close
Warning
CASH AVAILABLE (SETTLED CASH): 0.00; CASH NEEDED FOR THIS ORDER AND OTHER PENDING ORDERS: XX'000.00

If I'm not mistaken and it means that my wire isn't usable yet that will be extremely annoying as I may not be able to react to price drops as quickly as I want to, and IB charge the negative interest. I also don't like having my cash restricted from my usage in that way.

EDIT - Ok I think I am mistaken on the above, the problem is I didn't convert my cash to USD before making the trade. Doh.

I clearly need to do some more reading up but I am seriously giving thought to just staying trading in CH with the lowest cost broker as although I will pay a few hundred more per year at least I will feel like I have some control.

Hmm.

you already save 9USD by trading on the us stock market.

You can't buy stock ABC on exchange XYZ unless it's listed there.

Only about 40 foreign stocks are SIX listed but volumes are very small, many don't even trade daily. As has been mentioned that's a recipe for huge spreads.

But WAIT, as far as I know, IB has almost all stocks in the world, right?

Yeah, my cash became instantly available.

They offer many Exchanges but not all stocks. Not even close. To me IB is good if you want to invest in the US but then again most companies (and the important ones) are either US based or have listings there.

But they should have all the companies from NYSE and NASDAQ at least..... what if its not listed? You have to send them an email to list it?

As for when I was investing with the Sabadell Bank I remember I had to call them thousand times in order to add a Company to buy and sell stocks and that was quite a pain in the "you know where"

From all the advice I have received I think I am now just going to buy on NASDAQ in USD and convert the FX via IB. Anyone know if it is possible to transfer previously bought shares from SIX to NASDAQ so that I can integrate them all in my IB account?

Probably not.

To be individually identifiable shares are numbered, just like money bills. Typically (always?) a certain number range is registered for trading on a given exchange, and on that one exchange only.

But to be sure you should ask both brokers. The sender to determine the cost and the recipient to make sure he accepts them. Though the latter should be a given if, say, it's about an SP500 or NASDAQ100 member.

With a household stock sell and buy are probably less expensive than title transfer.

Should be possible, but this is not a routine 08/15 transfer, might be easier and cheaper to just sell & buy. Normally broker-to-broker asset transfer is a just a book entry change at the central depository, but the thing here is that different CSDs are involved - SIX SIS and DTCC. AFAIK they have a link arrangement so a transfer should be possible. Worst case, the issuer should be able to assist in transfer.

Ask both brokers indeed. If your swiss broker happens to have these shares and enough of them at DTCC they might as well transfer those, it shouldn't really matter to them - it's exactly the same stock. Or maybe IB would be willing to accept shares at SIX and add a new trading symbol for them

Buying and selling would be easier if my stocks hadn't risen by 10-30%. I will ask about the transfer to IB in USD or just transfer them to Cornertrader.ch.

Don't see no problem whatsoever with that, you should be happy

Don't you still get it? Once you've made the trade the currency is irrelevant. Or rather from then on it's all mostly about the currency in which the firm is making its revenue and profits. You can buy AAPL for USD on NASDAQ, CHF on SIX, EUR on XETRA, etc. It's exactly the same stock modulo in which the central depository it's in, and arbitrageurs will make sure the prices are more or less the same and follow fx rates. Of course, on a non-native exchange expect to pay a larger bid/ask spread and lower liquidity

Because they are till rising and I will not maximise my profit. Why sell when I don't have to? Makes no sense to me.

Nope I don't yet 'get everything', sorry to disappoint you but thanks for continuing to explain. .

You sell at one exchange/broker and immediately simultaneously buy at another, essentially doing the transfer in this way. Then your transfer the money via more traditional means. It costs you a little bit in transaction fees and there's a small market price risk which could however turn out in your favor just as well. No capital gains tax risk if you've held the shares for 6+ months. Transferring securities between brokers on the other hand often also costs money so it's not necessarily cheaper.

If you're open to taking some larger market risks by having a day or two delay between the trades, it might make sense to pull this around ex dividend dates to save some taxes in the process

The problem I see is that while I lock in the profit I currently have, that will be the end of the advantages I had of buying them for a low price. I would rather keep them in an account with no fees such as CT, sitting there continuing to rise, and buy a separate load of the same shares on IB, than sell them and lose the benefits of the low price I bought for. My CT account is all set up and ready to go so I have that there as my backup plan.

A what benefit?

It's a curse in some jurisdictions. (Fortunately not in Switzerland)

I also wonder what kind of "benefits" a low purchase price should give

Maybe I am completely misunderstanding what you mean here but if I bought a stock for 163 and it's now worth 212, then selling the stock would not allow me to buy more and keep the long-term advantages of a lower overall cumulative price (averaging up) upon buying more stocks. If I sell now I get a one-time gain and then start from scratch.