The US is home to some of the world's most dominant and fastest growing companies. Apple. Facebook. Google. Netflix. Microsoft. And many, many more.
Most Australian investors ignore the US opportunity. They are too caught up trying to beat the taxman with their fully franked dividends. Or worried about the exchange rate. Or paperwork. Or costs.
Don't get me wrong — there's a place for dividend stocks in every portfolio. But there's also a place for capital appreciation, and right now, the opportunity doesn't get much bigger than in the US.
Investing in US shares has never been easier, or cheaper.
How easy?
I just opened a brand new broker account with local startup Stake. It was totally online, with no paper forms to fill out. The whole thing took me less than 5 minutes. I've electronically transferred $A500 from my Commonwealth Bank savings account into my Stake account. Once it clears in a couple of days time, I'll be ready to trade.
How cheap is Stake? Try brokerage of $0. Stake make a little money on the foreign exchange spread, but charge nothing to buy and sell US shares.
[Disclosure: The Motley Fool has no commercial or any other arrangement with Stake. I just like free, and I like easy.]
As for which US shares to buy, that's where our worldwide network of Motley Fool research comes into play.
Every month, our own Scott Phillips recommends one US stock for his Motley Fool Share Advisor members to buy.
In the past, Scott has lead members to massive winners like…
Netflix — up 2218%
Amazon.com — up 451%
Priceline — up 233%
Apple — up 200%
Scott recently issued a buy recommendation on PayPal Holdings (Nasdaq: PYPL).
As a leader in the global digital payments industry, PayPal needs little introduction. With over 210 million total active users, a growing number of partnerships, and an increasing number of payment transactions per active account, PayPal is benefiting from scale and network effects.
Late last week PayPal reported yet another set of stellar results, prompting this Friday morning headline on the Nasdaq site…
"PayPal stock soars on massive Q3 earnings and revenue beats"
The advent of $0 brokerage for US shares is a game changer for Australian investors. Here's my suggested way to play it…
a) Open and fund an account with Stake. Takes 5 minutes. You'll be ready to trade a few days later.
b) Every month buy one US share. Because brokerage is free with Stake, you can invest as little as a few hundred dollars into each share. Start by buying PayPal. Not every pick will be a winner. But stick at it. Every month. Before too long, without even knowing it, you could have turned modest monthly contributions into a nicely growing lump sum amount.
