Buying USA Stocks from Sri Lanka
Verify if a local bank offers to participate in different stock markets - big companies like apple or facebook often gets traded on different markets - like Xetra (germany) or SIX (Switzerland). That being said I'd recommend you to rethink this strategy and maybe using some products offered by your bank - for 1000$ you will quickly drown in fees (my bank requires 40$ for every trade. If you buy and sell them you already lost nearly 10% of your investment) 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.
"Fair enough. I used to travel a lot (within a 100km of my home) and ended up eating at a lot of McDonalds. Ones that hadn't been renovated for the new ""look"", were near a border or were in a Walmart tended to be shittier. Ones in downtown used to be pretty consistent but I guess that probably has a bit to do with them being busier as well (no shitty McChickens that are crunchy because they've been heated too long).      Location | Food ---|--- France (Paris DT) | Good, fresh (as can be), slightly smaller portions US border (pennselvania) | sloppy as fuck, tons of sauce Italy (Rome) | Pretty good, like france except normal portions Germany (Frankfurt Airport) | pretty shit, stale burgers, stale fries, flat pop [armenians working there don't give a fuck] Malaysia (Kuala Lampur) | Acceptable, some local options on the menu Denmark | Pretty good, but different from NA McDicks. Different batter used on fried chicken, mayo tastes like grocery store stuff (for better or for worse) Sweden/Norway | See denmark London (Heathrow Airport) | Good, see italy Sri Lanka (Colombo DT) | Some odd topping choices, got a McChicken with cheese, not my thing personally Toronto DT | Hot food and fresh (as can be)" "I do not and did not support the USA actiona in Afghanistan, Syria, Lybia and Iraq.   When it comes to Iraq, I only refer to the 2001 events. I do support the USA actions in the gulf war versus Iraq in the 1990. Totally justified and a good necessary work in the 1990s!  I will add: the USA, and only the USA, is 100% responsible for the mess we have now in Syria, Lybia and Iraq. Instead of ""supporting"" the tyrants in those countries, countries that do not understand democracy and are not ready for democracy, the USA actively worked to topple their reasonable tyrant leaders in a failed attempt to do ""Arab Spring"" and ""Nation Building"".  Same thing with Iran! Instead of supporting the Shah of Iran, a great and admireable person, Carter created the mess we have with Iran today.  **We are so lucky that Egypt managed to kick out the ""democratically elected"" crazy religious guy (Morsi) and replace it with a good tyrant (A-Sisi).**   **As for ""Palestine"": I have no doubt that you are totally clueless about the this!** Just like your misguided support for N.Korea.  Let's start with N.Korea: I think that USA should stay out of it and only explain that, if EVER(!), Japan or Korea get attacked by N.Korea, then N.Korea will be wiped out from the face of the earth. The USA should let the neighboring countries of China, Russia and India (check the map) handle N.Korea. And those countries know how to handle any agression from N.Korea very very well. We should stay out of this business.  **Bill Clinton is 100% responsible for why N.Korea have nuclear weapons with that stupid ""nuclear agreement"" he did with them and even giving them nuclear reactors. Obama WILL BE 100% responsible for Iran having nuclear weapons soon!**  **Back to ""Palestine"", a short real true and verifiable historical summary:** There was never ever a country or nation of ""Palestine"". The only reason we hear about ""Palestine"" and ""Palestinians"" today is because in 1967 Israel liberated the local Arabs from a 1948 occupation(!!!!!) by Egypt and Jordan of land given to them by the UN, for which Israel agreed to. If the 1967 events never happened, you would not hear today about ""Palestine"" and ""Palestinians"". True or false?  So, Israel never wanted to be a ""Greater Israel"" to rule over millions of additional Arabs as part of its democracy or ""occupation"" - more Arabs than Jews!!!! Israel is not that dumb. True or false?  The blockade is actually by Egypt and Israel. Check the map! Egypt has a lllllooooonnngggg border with Gaza. True or false?  The local Arabs can have a ""Palestine"" for themselves already in 1948 (if they agreed to the UN partition plan) or 1967 after they were liberated by Israel. **Israel has only one condition, in 1948 and in 1967, for a ""Palestine"": that ""Palestine"" needs to be a nice neighbor to Israel.** They don't want to be nice, so no ""Palestine"" until they grow up. True or false?" It's important to distinguish between speculation and investing. Buying something because you hope to make money on market fluctuations is speculation. Buying something and expecting to make money because your money is providing actual economic value is investing.  If Person A buys 100 shares of a stock with the intent of selling them in a few hours, and Person B buys 100 shares of the same stock with the intent of holding on to it for a year, then obviously at that point they both have the same risk. The difference comes over the course of the year. First, Person B is going to be making money from the economic value the company provides over the whole year, while the only way Person A can make money is from market fluctuation (the economic value the company provides over the course of an hour is unlikely to be significant). Person B is exposed to the risk of buying the stock, but that's counterbalanced by the profit from holding the stock for a year, while Person A just has the risk. Second, if Person A is buying a new stock every hour, then they're going to have thousands of transactions. So even though Person B assumed just as much risk as Person A for that one transaction, Person A has more total risk. Say I am an employee of Facebook and I will be able to sell stares at enough of a profit to pay of my mortgage and have enough money left to cover my living costs for many years. I also believe that there is a 95% chance that the stock price will go up in the next few years. Do I take a 5% risk, when I can transform my life without taking any risk?   (The USA tax system as explained by JoeTaxpayer increases the risk.)  So you have a person being very logical and selling stocks that they believe will go up in value by more than any other investment they could have.   It is called risk control. (Lot of people will know the above; therefore some people will delay buying stock until Lock Up expiration day hoping the price will be lower on that day.   So the price may not go down.) "I would think that a lot of brokers would put the restriction suggested in @homer150mw in place or something more restrictive, so that's the first line of answer. If you did get assigned on your short option, then (I think) the T+3 settlement rules would matter for you.  Basically you have 3 days to deliver.  You'll get a note from your broker demanding that you provide the stock and probably threatening to liquidate assets in your account to cover their costs if you don't comply.  If you still have the long-leg of the calendar spread then you can obtain the stock by exercising your long call, or, if you have sufficient funds available, you can just buy the stock and keep your long call.  (If you're planning to exercise the long call to cover the position, then you need to check with your broker to see how quickly the stock so-obtained will get credited to your account since it also has some settlement timeline.  It's possible that you may not be able to get the stock quickly enough, especially if you act on day 3.) Note that this is why you must buy the call with the far date.  It is your ""insurance"" against a big move against you and getting assigned on your short call at a price that you cannot cover. With the IRA, you have some additional concerns over regular cash account - Namely you cannot freely contribute new cash any time that you want.  That means that you have to have some coherent strategy in place here that ensures you can cover your obligations no matter what scenario unfolds.  Usually brokers put additional restrictions on trades within IRAs just for this reason. Finally, in the cash account and assuming that you are assigned on your short call, you could potentially could get hit with a good faith, cash liquidation, or free riding violation when your short call is assigned, depending on how you deliver the stock and other things that you're doing in the same account.  There are other questions on that on this site and lots of information online.  The rules aren't super-simple, so I won't try to reproduce them here.  Some related questions to those rules: An external reference also on potential violations in a cash account: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/avoiding-cash-trading-violations" Selftrade does list them. Not sure if you'll be able to sign up from the US though, particularly given the FATCA issues. "Hmm... Well there are several ways to do that: Go to any bank (or at the very least major ones). They can assist you with buying and/or selling stocks/shares of any company on the financial market. They keep your shares safe at the bank and take care of them. The downside is that they will calculate fees for every single thing they do with your money or shares or whatever. Go to any Financial broker/trader that deals with the stock market. Open an account and tell them to buy shares from company ""X"" and keep them. Meaning they won't trade with them if this is what you want. Do the same as point 2, but on your own. Find a suitable broker with decent transaction fees, open an account, find the company's stock code and purchase the stocks via the platform the broker uses." I don't think the location of the funds is any of your concern. You're buying a CDI, which is: Australian financial instruments The US has no jurisdiction over you, being you an Australian, so unless you own a US-based asset (i.e.: a real-estate in the US, or a US brokerage account), US tax laws shouldn't matter to you.