Is it possible to trade US stock from Europe ?
Any large stockbroker will offer trading in US securities. As a foreign national you will be required to register with the US tax authorities (IRS) by completing and filing a W-8BEN form and pay US withholding taxes on any dividend income you receive.  US dividends are paid net of withholding taxes, so you do not need to file a US tax return.  Capital gains are not subject to US taxes.  Also, each year you are holding US securities, you will receive a form from the IRS which you are required to complete and return. You will also be required to complete and file forms for each of the exchanges you wish to received market price data from. Trading will be restricted to US trading hours, which I believe is 6 hours ahead of Denmark for the New York markets.  You will simply submit an order to the desired market using your broker's online trading software or your broker's telephone dealing service. You can expect to pay significantly higher commissions for trading US securities when compared to domestic securities. You will also face potentially large foreign exchange fees when exchaning your funds from EUR to USD. All in all, you will probably be better off using your local market to trade US index or sector ETFs. Yes, it's possible and even common but it depends on your bank or broker. One of the main differences is that you might assume FX risk if your account is in EUR and you trade stock denominated in USD. You might also encounter lower liquidity or price differences if you don't trade on the primary exchange where stocks are listed, i.e. NYSE, Nasdaq...
"Trading on specific ECNs is the easy part - you simply specify the order routing in advance.  You are not buying or selling the *exact* same shares.  Shares are fungible - so if I simultaneously buy one share and sell another share, my net share position is zero - even if those trades don't settle until T+3.  PS ""The Nasdaq"" isn't really an exchange in the way that the CME, or other order-driven markets are.  It's really just a venue to bring market makers together.  It's almost like ""the internet,"" as in, when you buy something from Amazon, you're not buying it from ""the internet,"" but it was the internet that made your transaction with Amazon possible." You can use interactive brokers. It allows you to have a single account to trade stocks and currencies from several countries. If I buy VUSA from one exchange, can I sell it in a different exchange, assuming my brokerage account lets me trade in both exchanges? Or is it somehow tied to the exchange I bought it from? This doesn't happen for all securities and between all stock exchanges. So that is dependent on broker and country. I checked for VUSA with Selftrade. They categorically refused allowing me to trade in VUSA in different exchanges. I can only buy and sell in same currency only, albeit sell(buy) in the same exchange where I buy(sell) from. Should be the same behaviour for all brokers for us mere mortals, if you are a bank or a millionaire than that might be a different question.  The VUSA you quote is quoted in GBP in LSE and in EUR in AEX, and the ETF has been created by an Irish entity and has an Irish ISIN.  As Chris mentioned below, happens between US and Canadian exchanges, but not sure it happens across all exchanges. You cannot deal in inter-listed stocks in LSE and NYSE. Since it's the same asset, its value should not vary across exchanges once you compensate for exchange rates, right? Yes, else it opens up itself for arbitrage (profit without any risk) which everybody wants. So even if any such instance occurs, either people will exploit it to make the arbitrage profit zero (security reflects the equilibrium price) or the profit from such transaction is so less, compared with the effort involved, that people will tend to ignore it. Anyways arbitrage profit is very difficult to garner nowadays, considering the super computers at work in the market who exploit these discrepancies, the moment they see them and bring the security right to the zero arbitrage profit point. If there's no currency risk because of #2, what other factors should I consider when choosing an exchange to trade in? Liquidity? Something else? Time difference, by the time you wake up to trade in Japan, the Japanese markets would have closed. Tax implications across multiple continents. Law of the land, providing protection to investors. Finding a broker dealing in markets you want to explore or dealing with multiple brokers. Regulatory headaches. For question #1, at least some US-based online brokers do permit direct purchases of stocks on foreign exchanges. Depending on your circumstances, this might be more cost effective than purchasing US-listed ADRs. One such broker is Interactive Brokers, which allows US citizens to directly purchase shares on many different foreign exchanges using their online platform (including in France). For France, I believe their costs are currently 0.1% of the total trade value with a 4€ minimum. I should warn you that the IB platform is not particularly user-friendly, since they market themselves to traders and the learning curve is steep (although accounts are available to individual investors). IB also won't automatically convert currencies for you, so you also need to use their foreign exchange trading interface to acquire the foreign currency used to purchase a foreign stock, which has plusses and minuses. On the plus side, their F/X spread is very competitive, but the interface is, shall we say, not very intuitive. I can't answer question #2 with specific regards to US/France. At least in the case of IB, though, I believe any dividends from a EUR-denominated stock would continue to accumulate in your account in Euros until you decide to convert them to dollars (or you could reinvest in EUR if you so choose). On the US markets, most index options are European style.  Most stock and ETF options are, as you noted, American style. You can contact the french agency for stock regulation and ask them : http://www.amf-france.org/ "Depends. The short answer is yes; HSBC, for instance, based in New York, is listed on both the LSE and NYSE. Toyota's listed on the TSE and NYSE. There are many ways to do this; both of the above examples are the result of a corporation owning a subsidiary in a foreign country by the same name (a holding company), which sells its own stock on the local market. The home corporation owns the majority holdings of the subsidiary, and issues its own stock on its ""home country's"" exchange. It is also possible for the same company to list shares of the same ""pool"" of stock on two different exchanges (the foreign exchange usually lists the stock in the corporation's home currency and the share prices are near-identical), or for a company to sell different portions of itself on different exchanges. However, these are much rarer; for tax liability and other cost purposes it's usually easier to keep American monies in America and Japanese monies in Japan by setting up two ""copies"" of yourself with one owning the other, and move money around between companies as necessary. Shares of one issue of one company's stock, on one exchange, are the same price regardless of where in the world you place a buy order from. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll pay the same actual value of currency for the stock. First off, you buy the stock in the listed currency, which means buying dollars (or Yen or Euros or GBP) with both a fluctuating exchange rate between currencies and a broker's fee (one of those cost savings that make it a good idea to charter subsidiaries; could you imagine millions a day in car sales moving from American dealers to Toyota of Japan, converted from USD to Yen, with a FOREX commission to be paid?). Second, you'll pay the stock broker a commission, and he may charge different rates for different exchanges that are cheaper or more costly for him to do business in (he might need a trader on the floor at each exchange or contract with a foreign broker for a cut of the commission)." The best way to do this would be to exchange the funds into USD and wire the funds to your bank account in the US. It is up to you whether you want to hold USD or Euros.  Depends if you plan to invest money in the US. Yes, orders like this are very possible.  There are nearly endless possibilities for structuring a trade.  It all comes down to whether you have the money to make the trade at the find you find a counterparty.  If you don't, the order is cancelled. Trades like this happen all day long at Goldman, BAML, Merril, UBS, etc.  And on eBay. Other than the possibility of minimal entry price being prohibitively high, there's no reason why you couldn't participate in any global trading whatsoever. Most ETFs, and indeed, stockbrokers allows both accounts opening, and trading via the Internet, without regard to physical location. With that said, I'd strongly advice you to do a proper research, and reality check both on your risk/reward profile, and on the vehicles to invest in. As Fools write, money you'll need in the next 6 months have no place on the stockmarket. Be prepared, that you can indeed loose all of your investment, regardless of the chosen vehicle. not a chance. imagine how this could be abused. US stock exchanges rarely ever do any reversing of transactions. theres a million different ways the market can take your money. a loss from a typo is nothing special. its a mismanagement just like any other loss or profit for others. I'm not aware of any method to own US stocks, but you can trade them as contract for difference, or CFDs as they are commonly known. Since you're hoping to invest around $1000 this might be a better option since you can use leverage. I have done this last year. Just open an account with an online brocker and buy a couple of Apple shares (6 I think, for 190$ each or something like that :) ). If this is just to test how stock exchange works, I think this is a good idea. I am also in Europe (France), and you'r right the charge to buy on NasDaq are quite expensive but still reasonnable. Hope this helps. You can check whether the company whose stock you want to buy is present on an european market. For instance this is the case for Apple at Frankfurt. 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?