I'm a Canadian resident and a few months ago I bought a US-listed Vanguard ETF of European stocks (VGK). There was a Canadian-listed version of this ETF (VE), but I chose the US-listed one because the fees were lower (9 base points vs. 22 base points).
This was not a wise decision, because it makes me pay 15% US withholding tax on the dividends (on top of the European withholding taxes). Because of this, I would like to sell the VGK to buy some VE and get rid of the US withholding taxes. The problem is that VE is far less liquid than VGK:
If I sold 300 shares of VGK it would earn me $16,056 (53.52*300). This works because there is demand for 542 shares at the bid price and I'm only selling 300 shares.
But if I wanted to use these $16,000 (for simplicity assume US$ 1 = Can$ 1) to buy VE, how am I to figure out the average cost-per-share I would be paying? I am requesting more than 550 shares of VE, but only 11 are available at the current ask price of $28.20. If I put a market order, there's no guarantee that I won't be paying something ridiculous like $30 or $40 per share (instead of $28.20 or slightly higher). But if I place a limit order say at $28.50, I could end up paying 10$ in transaction fees to buy only the 11 shares that are offered at the $28.20 ask price, which is a waste of money (and time).
Is there no way of knowing what the average cost-per-share will be if I buy $16,000 of VE with a market order?