Hong Kong stocks?

Hello,

I saw someone at Freetrade say Hong Kong was on the roadmap in a thread dated 2019, but when I went to check the link for the roadmap it wasn’t available.

Are HK stocks still planned in the near future?

Welcome to the forum.

I’m not aware of any official plans for exchanges other than the European expansion. Not anytime soon, anyway. You can always check the roadmap.

Just so you know, the stock request category is for posts about specific instrument requests. One at a time.

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Looks like the next exchanges will be European then either Australian or Canadian, based on where they’re setting up offices.

So nothing expected in the near term for Hong Kong, but maybe in a couple of years.

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I wonder why HK was taken off the roadmap …

It would be great is premium members could buy on the Hong Kong exchange. I understand there are extra fees, but I would be willing to pay.

If I get liquidated in a mass delisting event of ADRs, I am just going to close my account and move to another broker on the Hong Kong exchange. Chinese equities are much cheaper right now . If everyone did that, it would be more impactful to the business than just enabling a feature with extra fees and regulation attached.

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Hi @Nick2 the way freetrade work is by building the back. This update on the Finnish stocks :finland: thread explains the approach.

In short I wouldn’t hold your breath i’m afraid.

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I think you might find it harder than you think to invest directly on HSE. The only US/UK broker that I know of that lets you do that, that I know, is Charles Schwab. If you are aware of others ping this forum - I am sure others, including me, would like to know. As for the other Chinese exchanges, life becomes even more complicated. Some classes of shares are only trade-able by Chinese citizens.

Shares (or share classes) that are trade-able by non Chinese citizens on Chinese exchanges have to be dealt through licensed entities - and my guess is possibly worse than yours about what level of scrutiny that requires.

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I believe Degiro is other option for Hong Kong exchange .

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HSBC, Hargreaves Lansdown, IG, AJ Bell.

There are others, I have opened accounts as a hedge. I would prefer to use one platform and consolidate but if Freetrade isn’t able to facilitate, this is the way. I get liquidated = I close my free trade account.

Of course, the above has more fees attached, but I am willing to pay as over the 10 year investment horizon the valuations in china as very attractive.

@Nick2 Dunno about the others you mention but am surprised with your Hargreaves Lansdown mention. I specifically asked HL quite recently and they said no.

Also I checked for example Tencent Holdings which is listed on the HSE but it is only available as a ADR on Nasdaq.

The IG rep mentioned HL, but maybe that’s changed recently. Either way , the point is there are other suppliers where one can access the HK shares.

I am after Baba to be honest, sub 160 I am not letting it go.

It hasn’t changed recently - I just checked. HL don’t do HSE.

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Cool, well there are others, that’s the point. :slight_smile:

I’ve been looking into this too as my BABA holding is currently within my ISA. My concern is than even if FT manged to offer future access to Hong Kong or even OTC (in the events of USA delisting), these would still be excluded from the ISA and therefore I’d have a market sell forced on me. This may likely be worse because, presumably, market sentiment would be at all time lows in the event of forced delisting.

I’ve looked at Etoro, and they do offer shares on the Hong Kong exchange (as well as the ADR’s I think). My understanding is that the current comparison is 1 to 8 (US ADR’s to HK equivalent). Based on this then the market prices are trading very much in-line with one another.

I’ve never used Etoro, and I’ve been kinda put-off them by their aggressive CFD marketing, but nevertheless they may be a cheap alternative and they are FCA regulated.

No ISA with Etoro, but no commission fees either. From what I can gather it looks like there’s a very small FX fee on depositing/withdrawals (0.05%) to the account, plus an additional $5 fee on top on withdrawals. The actual trading fees are Zero. I’m not sure about whether you can deposit directly in HKD or whether it must be USD which are converted again?

I actually don’t think Baba will be delisted in the US, but then I don’t see much downside to swapping a holding to HK (other than FX differences), so I am tempted to move across now. I suppose the only reason I haven’t already is vanity as I don’t like to crystallize a loss in my ISA! This would also mean I’ve wasted a small amount of my ISA allowance for this year in BABA but, for my personal circumstances, this won’t have a huge effect and the size of my holding would have to 10x before I’d have to worry about CGT!

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This is just for comparison to show the ADR/Hong Kong performances (ADR is blue, HK in yellow)

For interest, I read the VIE legislation and it turns out the ADR is required to be kept roughly in line with the HK pricing (adjusted for the shares differential and currency fluctuations etc). I did think about looking into the time difference on this and seeing if one can predict the premarket activity of another, but then I had better things to do :slight_smile: .

Anyway, I plan to spread the risk with other providers, but the point is Freetrade will lose customers from this if delisting occurs. It seems of strategic value to source a clear definitive answer on what the offering might be should a delisting event occur. The current answer of “wait and see” is not sufficient.

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