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]
foreign income, transfer it to my savings account in India  Yes you can transfer to India. The right account would be NRO/NRE. As an NRI one should not hold a regular savings account. forum that foreign income is not taxable unless used to buy stocks, fds etc If you are an NRI, income earned outside of India is not taxable in India. However any income you generate in India is taxable, i.e. interest income, gains from shares etc. Do we need to pay taxes for the money transferred No tax if you are an NRI even if you transfer funds to India. Taxation does not depend on whether or not you transfer the money, it depends on your status used to pay home EMIs or principle amount? You can use the money for what ever you like. "First off, monozok is right, at the end of the day, you should not accept what anyone says to do without your money - take their suggestions as directions to research and decide for yourself.  I also do not think what you have is too little to invest, but that depends on how liquid you need to be.  Often in order to make a small amount of money grow via investments, you have to be willing to take all the investment profits from that principle and reinvest it.  Thus, can you see how your investment ability is governed by the time you plan to spend without that money?  They mantra that I have heard from many people is that the longer you are able to wait, the more 'risk' you can take.  As someone who is about the same age as you (I'm 24) I can't exactly say yet that what I have done is sure fire for the long term, but I suggest you adopt a few principles: 1) Go read ""A Random Walk Down Wall Street"" by Burton G. Malkiel.  A key point for you might be that you can do better than most of these professional investors for hire simply by putting  more money in a well selected index fund.  For example, Vanguard is a nice online service to buy indexes through, but they may require a minimum.  2) Since you are young, if you go into any firm, bank, or ""financial planner,"" they will just think you are naive and try to get you to buy whatever is best for them (one of their mutual funds, money market accounts, annuities, some flashy cd).   Don't.  You can do better on your own and while it might be tempting because these options look more secure or well managed, most of the time you will barely make above inflation, and you will not have learned very much. 3) One exciting thin you should start learning now is about algorithmic trading because it is cool and super efficient. quantopian.com is a good platform for this.  It is a fun community and it is also free. 4) One of the best ways I have found to watch the stock market is actually through a stock game app on my phone that has realtime stock price feed.  Seeking Alpha has a good mobile app interface and it also connects you to news that has to do with the companies you are interested in." am I allowed to transfer into NRE account from paypal? Credits into NRE accounts are restricted. It has to be established that the funds being credited are income outside of India. In case of paypal, paypal uses local clearing to credit funds into Bank Accounts. So essentially one cannot credit NRE account by domestic clearing network like NEFT. It is best that you withdraw the funds into Bank Account outside India and use SWIFT or remittance service to credit your NRE account. I do not want to transfer to an NRO account since the money credited into it will become taxable. This is not the right assumption. Credits into NRO are not taxable by default; if you establish that the funds are from outside India, there is no tax on the income money transferred from abroad into the NRO account. However, the interest that will be paid by the bank on the balance of the NRO account is taxable income in India and is subject to TDS. In contrast, interest paid on the balance in an NRE account is not taxable in India and is not subject to TDS as long as you maintain NRI status. However it does make sense to keep accounts segregated, i.e. income generated in India, credit the NRO account and income generated outside India credit to NRE. "Hey, I hear ya on this situation. I also graduated from a good school (Finance/Comp Sci) with a mediocre GPA and had difficulty securing a full time position in finance. My best advice is to network the shit out of alumni you can connect to through LinkedIn or your schools alumni network homepage. People are MUCH more open to talking than you would typically think.  Like your friends said, getting into IBD as an analyst is ideal as it gives you a great line on your resume, shows you worked hard, and has amazing training. Now comes the really shitty part of this conversation, if you've already graduated college, it's next to impossible to get into a bulge bracket as an analyst. Your best bet in this case would be to try to get into a mid-cap or boutique IB and work your way from there. Again though, networking means 100x more than anything else.  Now the good news, investment research is very different from investment banking. Yes, equity research is within an investment bank (sell-side and buy-side), but it is very different from investment banking (see Chinese Walls). It's easier to make the transition into research without formal recruiting than it is to get into IB directly.  Couple things to keep in mind, KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SELL-SIDE AN BUY-SIDE. I'm not talking about just one buys stuff the other tries to get you to buy it. I'm talking about conflicts of interest on the sell-side, personalities, types of research, what your role entails, org structure, etc. SELL-SIDE IS EXTREMELY DIFFERENT THAN BUY-SIDE!! Buy-side is MUCH less flexible than sell-side in recruiting, also. Do you currently own stocks, trade, track stocks all day long, etc.? If the answer is no to any of those, buy-side is really really hard. They want people who live and breath investing, markets, news, companies, because that's what they do. Also, training is effectively non-existent on the buy-side due to the size of the shops (some can have $10b with 10 people including admins).   Now lets talk sell-side. This is where I'd recommend you put your resources if you're really passionate about it. They tend to hire people without experience more often into entry-level jobs (b/c most are larger investment banks that use research to promote underwriting/investment business). Also, you need to have a pitch, but not as extensive as on the buy-side (those 1-2 pagers I talked about). The best advice I can offer is to hop on a Bloomberg/TR/CapIQ terminal if you can and just start finding email addresses of sell-side analysts (they publish them in their reports), and start writing the analysts directly expressing your interest in the business and your desire to talk with them. Be frank about where you are in your career, but show a true passion for research, and that you are ""hungry."" Attach your resume and keep the email short, a few sentences with maybe some bullets about how you could help that company. Spend the time to personalize it to that person. Follow up with a phone call in 1-2 weeks. They will appreciate the candidness and  you'll find them to be very receptive.  Even if these analysts don't have a job available right there, if they like you, they will pass you on to someone who might. This is how networking works, that guy might not have a job, but someone is always hiring, and its a tight knit community.  The other option is to work for any finance firm in some role for 3-5 years then go back to get an MBA. With an MBA from a top school you can basically transition into anything.   PM me if you ever want to talk over IM. I'd be happy to chat." What is the best and most economical way for me to pay the loan EMIs directly? (whether from a Singapore account or a NRE/NRO account) It is advisable to have it via the NRE account as this would be easier. If you already have funds in NRO account, you can use that before you use the funds from NRE account. For all expenses I make in India (e.g shopping, general expenses in India visits) what account should I be using, ideally? Is the route to transfer into NRE then NRO and then withdraw from NRO? Whatever is convenient. Both are fine. If I plan to make any investments in SIPs/Stock markets, should I link my NRE account with a demat account and directly use that? If I sell the shares will the earnings come back into NRO or NRE? You need to open a DEMAT PINS Account and link it to NRE account. You are sell and repatriate the funds without any issue from PINS account. Related question Indian Demat account Online money transfer facility from Axis Remit is a quick and easy way to transfer money from USA to India. AxisRemit is Axis Bank's flagship inward remittance service enables you to transfer money to your beneficiaries through the most efficient channels like online money transfer, exchange houses and money transfer operators. I don't think it makes sense to invest in an FD since. 1.) A 30 day FD is not very likely to give you 8-9% 2.) Inflation is so high in India that your losing money even though you think that you are doing well enough.  I would suggest you to expect a larger return and try hedging your portfolio correctly.  For example you can buy a stock which is likely to go higher, and to limit your risks, you can buy a put option on the same stock, so even if the price falls drastically, you can exercise your option and not lose anything except for the premium you paid. Good luck:) As other people have said they should register with a broker in the country they reside in that can deal in US stocks, then fill out a W8-BEN form. I have personally done this as I am from the Uk, it's not a very complicated process. I would assume that most US brokers don't allow foreign customers due to the person having to pay tax where they reside and the US brokers don't want to have to keep approximately 200 different tax codes in track.