US Securities Trading Service

If you already have an Integrated Account with Securities Account (account suffix 085) activated, you can simply download Hang Seng Invest Express mobile app (“Invest Express”) to your device where you can submit the Substitute Form W-8BEN and accept the Agreement for US market information display services under “US Securities” from the top left menu of the app. You will also have to maintain sufficient fund in your USD Savings Account under the Integrated Account before you start to place orders.

Note(s): If your Securities Account is a Share Margin account or a Trading Limit account, you have to open a new Integrated Account and activate the Securities Account under it in order to use the Service.

The US Internal Revenue Service (“US IRS”) W-8BEN Form allows beneficiary of a US sourced income to make a declaration of his / her status as non-US person. Non-US persons are subject to US withholding tax on certain types of income received from US sources, such as dividends, etc.

• All non-US account holders need to maintain a valid Substitute Form W-8BEN with the Bank and the Substitute Form W-8BEN will be subject to regular review. Customer can visit the US IRS website for downloading the US IRS W-8BEN Form and for instructions on completing the Form: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8ben.pdf and http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw8ben.pdf. If you would like to know more about the W-8BEN Form, please consult your professional adviser including but not limited to tax adviser. The Bank cannot provide you with any legal and/or tax advice.

You can trade Common Stocks (excluding warrants), Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and American Depository Receipts (ADRs) traded on NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX and NYSE ARCA, including securities listed in US as ADRs subject to French Financial Transaction Tax (“FFTT”), Italian Financial Transaction Tax (“IFTT”) or Spanish Financial Transaction Tax (“SFTT”). However, we do not accept trading / transfer in of low priced securities^[3], and we do not provide IPO service for US securities.

You can place, amend or cancel (a) limit order anytime, or (b) market order during US trading hours, via Invest Express.

For multiple unexecuted orders captured before the market closes, we can only accept one amendment or cancellation instruction during non-trading hours. We will process your request in the next US trading session around 08:00 U.S. ET. Before we process your amendment or cancellation request, subsequent amendment and cancellation on related order cannot be accepted.

For limit order, you can specify an order expiry date from the list of dates provided under “Good Till”. You may select up to 14 calendar days. Market order is a day order and it will expire at the end of US trading hours on order capture date.

After you have entered and confirmed the order/ instruction details, a reference number will be shown on the top of acknowledgement page. This only represents acknowledgement of receipt of your order/ instruction by the Bank.

There is no guarantee that your order will be executed or executed in a timely manner in the market. The Bank will try its best to process your order but it may not be performed due to fluctuations in stock price, insufficient market liquidity, system failure or any other event beyond the control of the Bank.

You can use the “Order status” enquiry function to check the order status via Invest Express. Once your order is executed, execution results will be sent to your mobile phone number on our record via SMS. No inbox message nor manual order confirmation is provided for US securities orders.

Your order will be transmitted to the broker designated by our Bank from time to time for order execution. Under certain circumstances, including but not limited to corporate events like stock split/merge, stock suspension, exceeding acceptable price variance, low priced securities, your tax status change, or whenever the relevant broker determines that it is appropriate and in the interest of a fair and orderly market to protect investors and comply with applicable local regulation/exchange trading rules/market requirements as appropriate, the broker may not proceed to execute your order in the exchange without prior notice to you.

If order is rejected by broker or exchange, the order status will become “unexecuted”. Please remember to check the latest order status through the “Order status” screen after you have placed a new order, an amendment or a cancellation instruction.

The weighted average execution price of all the same stock transactions on the trading day is shown on the contract note, while the execution price and quantity of individual trade is shown in Invest Express.

During the order placement process, the hold amount is calculated as follows for Market Order:

Hold amount = Limit up price x your specified quantity

Hold amount = Maximum (Previous closing or Last trade price before trading halt) x your specified quantity x 115%

Please note, “Limit up price” is part of the Limit Up-Limit Down (LULD) mechanism which is intended to prevent trades in US National Market System (NMS) securities from occurring outside of specified price bands. The bands would be set at a percentage level above and below the average reference price of the security over the preceding 5-minute. Please refer to the details below:

Tier 1 refers to securities that are S&P 500 constituent stock, Russell 1000 Index constituent stock and selected exchange-traded products. Tier 2 refers to all other securities.

Example (for reference only):
The current average reference price of an S&P 500 constituent stock is USD50.00 during market hours. If you want to place a market order of 10 shares of this stock, we’ll calculate the "hold amount" as USD525.00 (Limit up price is USD50.00 x 105% = USD52.50) and you should ensure that you have sufficient funds in your settlement account to settle the order after it is executed.

Market orders will be executed at the price prevailing at the time of execution, which may largely deviate from the quoted price at the time of order placing.

If the funding in your settlement account is insufficient to settle a buy order due to price volatility, we reserve the right to execute the buy order in whole or in part and/or deduct the relevant funds from your other accounts (including but not limited to HKD account). If this results in an overdraft in your settlement account, you must settle it before T+1. We reserve the right to sell the related securities to set-off the overdraft without prior notice.

Yes, you can.

Settlement cycle of the US stock markets is usually 1 business day after order execution. For buy orders, debit of the purchase amount from your account and deposit of the purchased securities will take place 1 business day after trade execution day. For sell orders, sales proceeds will be credited to your account 1 business day after sale execution day.

Trading service will be provided on Hong Kong holidays if it’s a U.S. trade day. If the settlement date of previous buy / sell trade falls on Hong Kong holidays, you can still be able to sell respective securities / buy with respective funds.

However, contract note will be prepared and sent to you on the next Hong Kong business day (excluding Saturday).