What is the best way to invest in US stocks from India?
Quite a few stock broker in India offer to trade in US markets via tie-up brokers in US. As an Indian citizen, there are limits as to how much FX you can buy, generally very large, should be an issue. The profits will be taxed in US as well as India [you can claim relief under DTAA]
Does my prior answer here to a slightly different question help at all? Are there capital gains taxes or dividend taxes if I invest in the U.S. stock market from outside of the country? If a company's shares trade in multiple exchanges, the prices in every exchange are very near to each other, otherwise you could earn money by doing arbitrage deals (buying in one, selling in the other) - and people do that once it becomes worth it. Which stock exchange you use is more a convenience for the buyer/seller - many investment banks offer only something local/near, and you have to go to specific investment banks to use other exchanges. For example, in Germany, it is easy to deal in Frankfurt, but if you want to trade at the the NASDAQ, you have to run around and find a bank that offers it, and you probably have to pay extra for it. In the USA, most investment banks offer NASDAQ, but if you want to trade in Frankfurt, you will have run around for an international company that offers that. As a stock owner/buyer, you can sell/buy your shares on any stock exchange where the company is listed (again, assuming your investment broker supports it). So you can buy in Frankfurt and sell in Tokyo seconds later, as nothing needs to be physically moved. Companies that are listed in multiple stock exchangs are typically large, and offer this to make trading their shares easier for a larger part of the world. Considering your 'theoretical buy all shares' - the shares are not located in the exchanges, they are in the hands of the owners, and not all are for sale, for various reasons. The owners decide if and when they want them offered for sale, and they also decide which stock exchange they offer them on; so you would need to go to all exchanges to buy them all. However, if you raise your offer price in one exchange only slightly, someone will see the arbitrage and buy them in the other locations and offer them to you in your stock exchange; in other words, for a small fee the shares will come to you. But again, most shares are typically not for sale. It's the same as trying to buy all Chevy Tahoes - even if you had the money, most owners wouldn't know or care about you. You would have to go around and contact every single one and convince them to sell. "Take a look at FolioFN - they let you buy small numbers of shares and fractional shares too.  There is an annual fee on the order of US$100/year.  You can trade with no fees at two ""windows"" per day, or at any time for a $15 fee. You are better off leaving the stock in broker's name, especially if you live overseas.  Otherwise you will receive your dividends in the form of cheques that might be expensive to try to cash.  There is also usually a fee charged by the broker to obtain share certificates instead of shares in your account." "Let's handle this as a ""proof of concept"" (POC); OP wants to buy 1 share of anything just to prove that they can do it before doing the months of painstaking analysis that is required before buying shares as an investment. I will also assume that the risks and costs of ownership and taxes would be included in OP's future analyses. To trade a stock you need a financed broker account and a way to place orders. Open a dealing account, NOT an options or CFD etc. account, with a broker. I chose a broker who I was confident that I could trust, others will tell you to look for brokers based on cost or other metrics. In the end you need to be happy that you can get what you want out of your broker, that is likely to include some modicum of trust since you will be keeping money with them. When you create this account they will ask for your bank account details (plus a few other details to prevent fraud, insider trading, money laundering etc.) and may also ask for a minimum deposit. Either deposit enough to cover the price of your share plus taxes and the broker's commission, plus a little extra to be on the safe side as prices move for every trade, including yours, or the minimum if it is higher. Once you have an account the broker will provide an interface through which to buy the share. This will usually either be a web interface, a phone number, or a fax number. They will also provide you with details of how their orders are structured. The simplest type of order is a ""market order"". This tells the broker that you want to buy your shares at the market price rather than specifying only to buy at a given price. After you have sent that order the broker will buy the share from the market, deduct the price plus tax and her commission from your account and credit your account with your share." What is the best form of investment? It only depends on your goals... The perfect amount of money depends also on your particular situation. The first thing you should start getting familiar with is the notion of portfolio and diversification. Managing risk is also fundamental especially with the current market funkiness... Start looking at index based ETFs -Exchange Traded Funds- and Balanced Mutual Funds to begin with. Many discounted online brokerage companies in the USA offer good training and knowledge centers. Some of them will also let you practice with a demo account that let you invest virtual money to make you feel comfortable with the interface and also with investing in general. If you are tax-resident in the US, then you must report income from sources within and without the United States.  Your foreign income generally must be reported to the IRS.  You will generally be eligible for a credit for foreign income taxes paid, via Form 1116. The question of the stock transfer is more complicated, but revolves around the beneficial owner.  If the stocks are yours but held by your brother, it is possible that you are the beneficial owner and you will have to report any income. There is no tax for bringing the money into the US.  As a US tax resident, you are already subject to income tax on the gain from the sale in India.  However, if the investment is held by a separate entity in India, which is not a US domestic entity or tax resident, then there is a separate analysis.  Paying a dividend to you of the sale proceeds (or part of the proceeds) would be taxable.  Your sale of the entity containing the investments would be taxable.  There are look-through provisions if the entity is insufficiently foreign (de facto US, such as a Subpart-F CFC).  There are ways to structure that transaction that are not taxable, such as making it a bona fide loan (which is enforceable and you must pay back on reasonable terms).  But if you are holding property directly, not through a foreign separate entity, then the sale triggers US tax; the transfer into the US is not meaningful for your taxes, except for reporting foreign accounts. Please review Publication 519 for general information on taxation of resident aliens. It looks like your best option is to go with an online broker. There are many available. Some of them won't let you open an account online as a foreign national but will allow you to open one through the mail. See more about that http://finance.zacks.com/can-nonus-citizen-trade-us-stocks-9654.html Also keep in mind that you will need to pay taxes on any capital gains made through selling http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p519.pdf i have been trading with dollarbird Trading firm for past 1 year there is absolutly no problem everything is fine you can google them to find anything about them.they have provided me with LASER trading platform which requires a bit of training as in to know the software but i can say one thing trading in US Equity market exp. is very diffrent from indian market they are very mature market and highly liqd and have good volatality to trade best equity market to trade with great trading platform you should have a exp. to trade on US equity it is diffrent If you're exchanging cash, then the rule of thumb is generally that it's better to buy currency in the country that issues the currency.  In your case that would mean buy INR in India and buy USD in the U.S.  The rationale is that supply of foreign currency is generally smaller, so you get a little better price if you're holding the foreign currency.  There are, of course, exceptions, like if you're going to a country with little foreign trade. (That wouldn't seem to apply to the U.S. or India.) If you are doing an electronic transfer through a bank, however, I doubt that it matters which end initiates the transfer.  You're going to get their wholesale exchange rate plus fees.  It seems more likely to matter what fees are charged, and that may vary more by bank than by country. Go to fidelity.com and open a free brokerage account. Deposit money from your bank account into your fidelity account. (expect a minimum of $2500, FBIDX requires more I believe) Buy free to trade ETF Funds of your liking. I tend to prefer US Bonds to stocks, FBIDX is a decent intermediate US Bond etf, but the euro zone has added a little more volatile lately than I'd like. If you do really want to trade stocks, you may want to go with a large cap fund like FLCSX, but it is more risky especially in this economy. (but buy low sell high right?)  I've put my savings into FBIDX and FGMNX (basically the same thing, intermediate bond ETF funds) and made $700 in interest and capitol gains last year. (started with zero initially, have 30k in there now) "In India the Short is what is called in other markets call as ""Naked Short"" [I think I got the right term]. It means that you can only short sell intra day and by the end of the day you have to buy back the shares [at whatever price, if you don't; the exchange will do it by force the next day]. In other markets the Intra day shorts are not allowed and one can short for several days by borrowing shares from someone else [arranged by broker] India has a futures market, so you can sell/buy something today with the execution date of one month. This is typically a fixed day of the month [I think last Thursday]" The best way I know of is to join an investment club.  They club will act like a mutual fund, investing in stocks researched and selected by the group.  Taking part in research and presenting results to the group for peer review is an excellent way to learn.  You'll learn what is a good reason to invest and what isn't. You'll probably pick both winners and losers. The goal of participation is education.  Some people learn how to invest and continue happily doing so. Others learn how to invest in single stocks and learn it is not for them. "OptionsXpress is good. I have used them for many years to trade stocks mainly (writing Covered calls and trading volatility). You set the account up through OptionsXpress Australia, and then fund the account from one of your accounts in Australia (I just use my Bank of Queensland account). The currency conversion will be something to watch (AUD to USD). The rates are low, but one of the best features is ""virtual trading"". It allows you to give yourself virtual funds to practice. You can then experiment with stop-losses and all other features. Perhaps other platforms have this, but I am yet to see it... anyway, if you want to trade in US stocks you are going to need to switch to USD anyway. ASX never moves enough for my interests. Regards, SB" "Hmm... Well there are several ways to do that: Go to any bank (or at the very least major ones). They can assist you with buying and/or selling stocks/shares of any company on the financial market. They keep your shares safe at the bank and take care of them. The downside is that they will calculate fees for every single thing they do with your money or shares or whatever. Go to any Financial broker/trader that deals with the stock market. Open an account and tell them to buy shares from company ""X"" and keep them. Meaning they won't trade with them if this is what you want. Do the same as point 2, but on your own. Find a suitable broker with decent transaction fees, open an account, find the company's stock code and purchase the stocks via the platform the broker uses." Probably the easiest way for individual investors is oil ETFs.  In particular, USO seems to be fairly liquid and available.  You should check carefully the bid/ask spreads in this volatile time.  There are other oil ETFs and leveraged and inverse oil ETFs exist as well, but one should heed the warnings about leveraged ETFs. Oil futures are another possibility though they can be more complicated and tough to access for an individual investor.  Note that futures have a drift associated with them as well.  Be careful close or roll any positions before delivery, of course, unless you have a need for a bunch of actual barrels of oil. Finally, you can consider investing in commodities ETFs or Energy stocks or stock ETFs that are strongly related to the price of oil.  As Keshlam mentions, care is advised in all these methods.  Many people thought oil reached its bottom a few weeks back then OPEC decided to do nothing and the price dropped even further.