Hello from a newbie - some questions also

[blueswan]

Or you can just get an IB account so you can trade practically anything. brokerage is reasonable. Just take into account the minimum amount to open an account. Just do it slowly. Although I would start reading some articles in Stock Trading.

[mp52]

Welcome aboard.
... I invest in Vanguard Capital´s SP500 tracker and am happy with it. I use it for monthly fixed amount investments and am happy with the performance and the fair fees charged.

Iceman, how are you investing in the Vanguard fund? I know Canadians have issues opening US Vanguard accounts so am interested how you make this work? I'm assuming you've opened a US-based bank account and periodically transfer lump sums of NZDs to that to cut down on FX charges? Is your method open to most or do you have connections in the US than enable you to use Vanguard directly? What's the investment threshold required to access the fund?

With the Aus dollar so favourable, I've thought about transferring some funds to an Aus bank account and buying monthly investments in one of the Vanguard EFTs on the ASX.

Cheers.