Investing or buying shares in U.S. companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon was quite complicated for Brazilians until recently. U.S. exchange Uphold has launched a service that promises to change that. The service allows investors in Brazil and throughout Latin America to buy fractions of shares of these companies, with low cost. In August, the company intends to disclose news in relation to the Brazilian market.
For example, an Amazon share costs approximately US$ 2,400 the equivalent of R$10.000,00 today, a figure that is inaccessible to most Brazilians. At Uphold, the investor will be able to buy a minimum fraction of this stock, actually entering the U.S. market, one of the best investments over the last ten years.
Buying shares of U.S. companies is hedge against inflation
Investment in U.S. corporate stocks also acts as a dollar hedge. “If you had put US$1,000 in Uphold’s basket of 50 U.S. shares in June 2010, today you would have US$ 5,785,00 ( RS 31.000,00) compared to US$ 337 if you had kept the Reais, US$ 50 in Argentine pesos or less than US$ 0.01 in Venezuelan bolivars”, said J.P. Thieriot, CEO of Uphold.
One of the main advantages of trading on the platform is the possibility of directly exchanging one share for another among the more than 100 available papers, in addition to metals, cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange. In the traditional market, for example, to trade a Tesla stock for one from Google, you need to sell Tesla’s and buy Google’s, that is, two transactions, which would cost about US$130 in fees at Latin American brokers. At Uphold, this same operation would cost only US$ 7.04 and would be done at once, just by buying the respective pair.
