Can Stockopedia cover US Stocks?

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1st Mar '24 by Sanjay

42 comments 1959 reads

It seems to me that US stocks are easier to trade, have more liquidity and action compared to UK stocks.

It would be great if Stockopedia did a round up of popular traded US Stocks

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Sanjay

Premium Member

42 comments

Keelan Cooper

11th Mar '24

Hi Sanjay,

Thanks for the post!

We regularly check the discussion forum, and it's great to see this kind of feedback. We're always open to ideas on how we can improve both our content and product offering, so community discussions such as this really do help.

Having factored this feedback into account, Megan's posted a section on Adobe (NSQ:ADBE) in our latest Week Ahead article, and we intend to provide more coverage of US and international stocks moving forward. I've attached a link to the article below.

https://www.stockopedia.com/co...

Best,
Keelan

Peter John

13th Mar '24

To me that's a great suggestion to look more at the US. Still after 20+ years struggling to understand how/why the LME has such control on the market. You do not produce any resources and trade no physicals? I have an MBA but I still do not get it. Bit like everyone having to trade in US dollars. Cheers.

Timoteo

16th Mar '24

William

I use HL I agree with your fx comment which as I understand it, applies both to the purchase and the sale so is quite significant, but since many of my transactions are in a SIPP or ISA I have no option. I haven’t had any problems with spreads, although I seldom buy/sell in the first hour of trading.

Rusty2

16th Mar '24

IG group (LON:IGG) have ISAs as well. I have moved from HL to IGG. Spreads on US shares are very narrow. IGG is free on US shares, apart from the 0.5% forex fee, if you do 3 trades in the previous month, on any shares.

AnonymousUser1822519

16th Mar '24

Barclays smartinvestor has a tiered FX rates, the the higher the amount invested the lower the rate, ranging from 1% to 0.25%.

William K

17th Mar '24

Thanks Timoteo. The spreads are greater for smaller companies and early in the day (just like the UK). If you stick to very liquid stock like Microsoft (NSQ:MSFT) and Apple (NSQ:AAPL) the spreads are negligible even in early trading. It is of course possible - and reasonably straightforward - to move your ISA from one online broker to another. Last year my wife and I moved the bulk of our ISAs from HL to IG - as Rusty2 has done.

StrawberryDreams

17th Mar '24

The UK market will 'come back' sometime.Just like the Greek economy has post their low point.Who knows when but it will get more exciting,.... as not all of us are expert stock pickers (i know i'm not) and able to pick the few currently that are outperforming and not selling off post good news.And there must be some multibaggers in there somewhere... which we would wish 5-10 years down the line we had bought!

Sometimes doing this and paying interest to the market everyday has its downsides.. impatience for me for one.And especially so when you see someone whose picked something else doing not just well, but exceptionallt well.When will NVIDIA (NSQ:NVDA) 's market cap halve like Tesla from its peak (NSQ:TSLA) 's..?!

Rusty2

17th Mar '24

There are already multi baggers, such as Yu (LON:YU.) and Ashtead Technology Holdings (LON:AT.) but these are not well rated on SCVR getting Red/amber and Amber ratings.

The US really struggling to find any value in companies that are doing ok, it is not just the big 7. I can name loads that look too high, yet they will probably go a lot higher.

NVIDIA (NSQ:NVDA) will fall when the growth falls or they miss a forecast or the technology sector falls, as in 2022. Have you seen their growth figures? The forecast PEG is around 0.8

Super Micro Computer (NSQ:SMCI) has gone up 10x in the last year but the PEG is only 1.2

Stocks under $2bn get very little coverage in the US markets.

Timoteo

19th Mar '24

Thanks, William. I hadn’t realised that IG did ISAs : I shall have a look. All of my US holdings are of liquid stocks which probably explains why I have never had a problem.

William K

20th Mar '24

Hi Rusty2. I think that we have to look at the US market completely differently from the UK market. In the UK we tend to look for value. In the US it's all about momentum. At least, that's my observation. The US market, generally speaking, is not 'buy and hold' it's for traders. The Mark Minervini approach basically is to buy on good news, momentum, short term EMAs above long term EMAs, and relative strength. The only fundamental he really advocates is rising EPS over 5 years. A high PE is indicative of market confidence and future expectations. He likes tight stop losses (say 10%) and refuses to let a decent winning position turn into a loss. It's worth following him on Twitter. (Make sure you look for the blue tick as there are a lot of fake Minervinis on Twitter.)

BnB

20th Mar '24

The US market, generally speaking, is not 'buy and hold' it's for traders.

Seriously? You’re talking about the greatest collection of quality compounders ever assembled in one place. Absent macro-derived market events, buy and hold is literally the ideal strategy.

William K

20th Mar '24

Hi BnB. Sure. There are quality compounders, many of which I have held for several years (Microsoft (NSQ:MSFT) NVIDIA (NSQ:NVDA) Alphabet (NSQ:GOOG) . But these are actually only a small percentage of the market. Also the top compounders are too big to continue their exponential growth. The real money is to be made in the smaller companies with a good story. But you've got to know when to get out. Take Zoom Video Communications (NSQ:ZM) for example - $64 in 2019, peaked at $560 in 2020 and is now $66. Same story with Peloton Interactive (NSQ:PTON) , Snowflake. (NYQ:SNOW) , Alibaba Holding (NYQ:BABA) NIO (NYQ:NIO) and many others that you can probably name as easily as I can. The important thing to know is when you're trading and when you're investing. Similar processes but different mindsets.

BnB

20th Mar '24

You’re simply defining the difference between investing and trading. But to state that quality compounders only constitute a small proportion of the market is a bold and misguided claim. Taking the S&P 500 as a proxy for the market, I would confidently assert that well over half of the total market cap of the index lies in quality compounders. Mag 7 is more than a quarter of the market in just seven stocks. Although I would exclude Tesla from the definition of a quality compounder. Look at the huge $100 billion + corporations in the layer below, most of them also with decades of compounding growth.

William K

20th Mar '24

Thanks BnB. The difference between investing and trading is exactly what this debate is about. The two styles are not mutually exclusive. The problem is that you buy something like Zoom Video Communications (NSQ:ZM) and it doesn't turn out to be a long term compounder so you sell fast. You buy NVIDIA (NSQ:NVDA) and it does, so you hold. I agree that the SPX & NDX have some of the best companies in the world and the best way of investing - and the cheapest - is a tracker such as Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF USD Dis (LON:VUSA) and / or Invesco EQQQ NASDAQ-100 UCITS ETF Dist (LON:EQQQ) (currency hedged or unhedged). A decent US portfolio for UK investors might be 50% trackers, 25% Tech giants and 25% speculative trades (during bull markets only - like we're having right now). It is a mistake, I believe, to hold on to any stock when the sell signs flash up. Even if the value and quality look OK.

snowdrop

25th Mar '24

I have a long term IB account in $. If you can handle the tech, it's very efficient and cheap. it's data is better than iweb for the UK tax year (as is degiro!).

snowdrop

25th Mar '24

SA seems to me to offer 2 extremes as eye candy to attract subscriptions. Stocko offers individual commentaries from people you can access as individuals over a period of time. It's a labour of love rather/as well as a business.

qvg

30th Mar '24

I have only just spotted this thread. My portfolios is about 25% US stocks, and I am trying to increase that %. I have a few accounts, including ISAs with Interactive Brokers- I think they have the best fees and best exchange rates.

For information, I find Seekingalpha.com useful

A Stockopedia.com regular article similar to SCVR would be very useful

Rusty2

30th Mar '24

I would like to increase my US folio but finding it difficult to find any value. Technology shares have done very well but I feel are running out of steam or there will be a correction.

BnB

30th Mar '24

I would like to increase my US folio but finding it difficult to find any value.

In terms of sectors, energy, utilities and real estate.

In terms of style, small cap value.

That said, the US market has been all about quality growth for the last18 months. And most of the past 15 years for that matter. I certainly find this style fully valued today. But it contains ALL the best companies pretty much by definition.

Frank Holland

5th Apr '24

I’ve traded US stocks for a number of years. I’d say that Interactive Brokers are the best by far. Their trading platform is second to none, albeit it can be a little heavy going. But it is extremely versatile for trading, it has some very powerful APIs if you want to automate your trading or set up complex trading strategies. It’s also possible to download historical data. I use Excel VBA to interface with their trading platform although there are others like Python, C++, Java.

The trading fees are very low for US stocks and the spreads are usually very tight and very liquid, also you don’t pay stamp duty. There is a 15% withholding tax on dividends but not on all stocks. The account management is also very powerful, plenty of analysis in there and you can customise statements. I trade options through them, they are competitive and again you can set up complex conditional orders. The downside is that their support could be better, over the years I’ve had mixed experiences. Also there are a few bugs in the platform but I’ve never had a major issue.

I have a GBP account with them (although I used to have a USD account) and an ISA. I predominantly trade US stocks & options. In the ISA they automatically convert GBP to USD when you enter a trade and the FX rate is given in the trade log. On exit the USDs are converted to GBPs automatically as you can’t hold USD in an ISA.

I joined IG Index in the 80’s to trade UK options & spread bet. The fee structure is competitive and the range of markets is the market leader. They’ve recently taken over TastyTrade so increased their exposure to US markets. In the early days their brokers/support staff were really good but sadly their support is now, in my experience, pretty useless.

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Sanjay

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