Brad

Hi, I think the advantages of having DAS greatly diminish if you're swing trading and not day trading. IB's TWS is decent for general swing trade management. You can also use free tools like FinViz, Thinkorswim demo accounts, etc to help. I like how you can having earnings dates shown on the chart on TOS.

I am also using Thinkorswim along with TWS for Level 2 and execution. Together they can do the job. The TOS charting is far better than that of TWS and both are free platforms that come with an account.

I have used both DAS and IB TWS. I used DAS for a few months and thought it was great. I went back to TWS to save money and I am able to trade more or less the same way I was on DAS, it's just a bit more awkward with the charts and Level 2. I combine it with TOS which I use just for charting. For me, it's worth it for now to save the money in my monthly budget, but I'll get back to DAS at some point in the future.

Hi, BBT actually did a webinar on Taxes for Canadians with some guys from KPMG and I thought it was pretty good: https://bearbulltraders.com/course/technology-monday/lesson/broker-trading-platform-tax-services/topic/managing-taxes-for-canadians/

I found this today from the IB Australia FAQ: https://www.interactivebrokers.com.au/en/index.php?f=46352 It's the first time I have seen a thorough answer to that question on any of their sites. It says: Does the PDT Rule effect my account? Non-U.S. residents whose accounts are carried by IBKR Australia, IB Canada, IB Central Europe, IB Hong Kong, IB India, IB Ireland, IB Japan, IBKR Luxembourg and IBKR Singapore are not subject to the Pattern Day Trading Rule. Non-U.S. residents whose accounts are carried by IB LLC or IB UK are subject to the rule. For additional information as to the products which are subject to this rule, click here. Powered by IBot

Hi George, That would be nice someday. I'm not too far away over in Taipei.

I definitely support this idea. This could be a sort of missing link for some of us. Currently, I see a lot of great trades, methodology, and analysis which I appreciate a lot. I don't see much in the way of sharing of equity curves over the months and years as someone gains consistency. I think there would be a lot to learn from that and it could be enlightening to see the realities of the learning curve good and bad from different perspectives. I think there was a webinar similar to this done recently actually, but I don't see it posted anywhere yet and I wasn't able to catch it live due to my time zone.

I have traded from Taiwan, Thailand, Canada, and mainland China. In Canada, Taiwan, and Thailand the connection was pretty good and I got reliable and quick executions from IB on TWS. I don't use DAS, but presumably it wouldn't bee too different. In mainland China on the other hand it was a different story. The Internet inside China was blazing fast and pretty reliable for Baidu and what have you that comes from within China. As soon as I needed servers and websites outside the mainland it was laggy and I got cut off frequently. And I'm not talking about the banned stuff that you would need a VPN for. I was able to connect to my trading platform without a VPN and got cut off a lot and it was laggy and unpredictable. With a VPN it was a little better. So, to the OP, it would likely depend greatly on where in Asia and what powers are controlling the Internet there.

I just spent a month with my 17" ASUS laptop and two ASUS extrenal USB monitors. I found that that did the job and I didn't feel like I needed anymore screens. The charts didn't load quite as fast but it worked out fine. I had to use Wifi but it was okay. It's even better if you can plug in with a LAN cable for (hopefully) a stable connection.

I've been trading from Wifi in Kaohsiung, Taiwan for the last two weeks. I have a fairly good connection here so it's been fine, but it did cut out a couple of times which rarely happens to me at home. I would use a wired ethernet connection if I could but this place only has Wifi. The speed and the ping are good though. I would agree that 10mbps is doable, but more is better of course if you've got audio from the chatroom, multiple charts, two charting programs etc. So 24 is probably decent. Of course it's good to have your phone with the trading app close by with data so you can use it to hop out of a position if things go haywire.

I don't know the rules about your opening an actual US account, but another option might be the borderless account with Transferwise: https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/ Also, there's N26, an online German bank with international features and they have a partnership with Transferwise: https://n26.com/en-eu/

Prorealtime (www.prorealtime.com) is a platform that I have heard good things about, but they don't seem to have that much of a presence on social media chatter. They might be more popular in Europe and it looks like they are UK-based.