I'm overseas indefinitely. What should I do with $14,000 in US investments?

I've been in Australia for nearly 4 years and I am applying for perm. residency this year. I have $8500 in a Roth IRA and $5500 in index funds in a regular investment account. Both are in an Etrade account. I have almost zero activity in these accounts in 4 years, except for Etrade's inactivity fee. These fees are about $40 per quarter. Where should I move these accounts to minimize fees? I don't plan on conducting any buying or selling, or adding more money.

Whatever you do, please make sure that when you say "Perm" you MEAN perm...

My aunt lived in europe for 16 years and when she came back she had ALLLLLLL kinds of penalties and taxes to pay...

To be honest... I would recomend going to a CPA in Australia that specializes in International Finance...

S/he would be able to give you MUCH better advice then anything you can get off of random, normal people on Y!A.

Go to a university/international business school, an international hospital, or an international corporation and ask the HR department to recomend a reliable CPA.

INTERNATIONAL companies need to deal with all kinds of tax and finance stuff... Should the French professior be paid in Euros or Australan Money? Should his taxes be paid to australia or france? What will his investments be in? AU or FR?

They have to deal with this stuff day in and day out... My aunt worked in HR for Insead and had to deal with staff from everywhere and transfering people from france to Singapore...

She almost went insane...

Unfortunately she didn't manage her own finances as well as she did the employees and she got rammed...

A CPA will save your bu tt.

Not to be unresponsive...

but...



share?

ask a bank where you are about what to do maybe you can convert it over there or cash it in

I would buy an S & P 500 index fund from Vanguard.
The fees are very low.

(You are really being ripped off from eTrade. $40 a quarter is a lot of money.)

Good luck.

At the moment I'd get it out of your US accounts and into something more secure. Ultimately... both Asia and Europe have been out-performing US stocks/funds so I'd wait until this recession passes and then put the money into Asian (particularly Chinese or Indian) stocks.

Right now the euro and the pound are looking strong. Meanwhile, the American economy is floundering and in risk of recession. If I were you, I'd dump your American holdings into a more solid currency or just pull the money out altogether and put it into something conservative, like a savings account or bonds.

But then again, you might not want to trust your personal finances to a 16 year old kid like me. I'd consult a professional first. =P

Get rid of anything that is in US$..... any investments funds. The US$ will be worth next to nothing in the not too distant future. convert into Euros and/or Yen.

Do you know what happens when the Opec countries switch to the Euro or a set of strong currencies? It's going to happen soon. The US$ is finished! In the last seven years the US$ has lost 37% of its purchasing power , value compared against the other stronger currencies and is rapidly losing ever more. There comes a time when all those countries who hold large amounts of US$ - especially China with 2 Trillion which it will dump, cash in..... will cut their losses and jump of that sinking ship for good. You will see it happening this year.

14000 is not much - nevertheless, be prudent. If you are now concerned about a quarterly fee of $40..... wait until the sh*t hits the fan!