How to get leverage for US stocks trading from Europe

A

alexkofler

Dear fellow traders,

I have a question and would be interested in your ideas.
I have been trading US stocks for more than a year and been quite successful on it. I do swing plays and hold my trades for several days to some weeks. I average a solid 30% per month, sometimes more.

I can only do this because I'm well leveraged. I use CFDs with Interactive Brokers, who give me a 1:10 leverage on US stocks overnight. However I'm concerned what I do if IB suddenly stopped offering CFDs or went out of service. What are your ideas?

Specially, I have read that many of you work together with prop shops who give you 1:10 or even 1:20. But I suppose these US based prop shops will not accept somebody from Europe, trading at home in Europe, having no degree or license?
Do you know any European prop shops who offer leverage on trading US stocks overnight?

Or do you have other ideas?
Portfolio margin is way to low for me (maybe 1:4), I do not really like options because of the time premium and I have not found another decent CFD broker yet. For example, others charge 2,5 ct per trade (IB 0,5) or 7% interest on the margin (IB 1,5%). Changing CFD brokers would be quite costly.

I really appreciate any idea!

Kind regards,
Alex
 
alexkofler said:
Dear fellow traders,

I have a question and would be interested in your ideas.
I have been trading US stocks for more than a year and been quite successful on it. I do swing plays and hold my trades for several days to some weeks. I average a solid 30% per month, sometimes more.

I can only do this because I'm well leveraged. I use CFDs with Interactive Brokers, who give me a 1:10 leverage on US stocks overnight. However I'm concerned what I do if IB suddenly stopped offering CFDs or went out of service. What are your ideas?

Specially, I have read that many of you work together with prop shops who give you 1:10 or even 1:20. But I suppose these US based prop shops will not accept somebody from Europe, trading at home in Europe, having no degree or license?
Do you know any European prop shops who offer leverage on trading US stocks overnight?

Or do you have other ideas?
Portfolio margin is way to low for me (maybe 1:4), I do not really like options because of the time premium and I have not found another decent CFD broker yet. For example, others charge 2,5 ct per trade (IB 0,5) or 7% interest on the margin (IB 1,5%). Changing CFD brokers would be quite costly.

I really appreciate any idea!

Kind regards,
Alex
More...

30 percent per month! If you compound for a few months (and don't blow up) you should be OK with IB's 1:4 (or 1:2 overnight) leverage.

Otherwise, there's spread betting - fine for swing / position, no profit sharing, no tax.
 
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Thanks for your reply! I'll check out the spread betting brokers, but as far as I can remember their spread is horrible. I'll have a look however.
I can only make this much profit because I'm literally all in, fully exploiting every dollar of my margin. The problem with IB's 1:2 leverage is that my profit would shrink accordingly - to 6% a month. Still a lot sure, but not what I had until now. I'd be happy with 1:10 and really cheerful for 1:20.
 
Hi Alex,

There are a few US prop firms who WILL take on European traders - however Overnight positions is not really their cup of tea.

Cy group - I have use them for daytrading in Europe
Bright (Need more risk capital - but remember hearing that they do overnight)
Nevis (not sure if they do overnights?)

There are probably some more, but that's all I can think of right now.

Maybe someone else will chime in and share their experiences.
Please do let us know if you find something that works for you, I for one would be interested.

S
 
There are a bunch of cfd brokers that offer 20:1 leverage on a non volatile stock like aapl and even up to 60:1 if you use a tight stop loss PM if you want details
 
thanks for all your replies, guys. great to know that there are prop firms who accept european clients.
that takes my fears what to do if CFDs from IB weren't an option any more.

Though right now I'm satisfied with IB, 10:1 is good for me and their charges are really fair, so I think I'll stay there for a year more and see how I'll do. I can still take my trading to the next level after that. Great to know there are other options, however. Thanks for all your inputs and good luck with your trading!

Regards, Alex
 
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