I want to buy shares in 9169.HK Vanguard Total China Index ETF in USD.
Their How To Invest page says "You can buy Vanguard ETFs through a brokerage firm during normal trading hours."
But then using vanguard.com (the main site in the USA), I can't find the ticker 9169.HK, and Vanguard hasn't been answering the phone when I call.
Since it's an ETF, I doubt I need to buy through Vanguard.
What are some ways Americans can buy some shares of funds listed in the Hong Kong exchange?
The thing about ETF market in Hong Kong is that they are illiquid.
Even for HKD denominated symbols, the bid-ask spread is huge and the minimum tick size is also huge, and there are transaction fees like stamp duty.
The securities regulatory regime of Hong KOng allows opening a stock trading account remotely by submitting online forms to registered local brokers. The difficulty is finding a local broker that adopted such framework. There are probably fewer than 5 local brokers that offer this.
https://www.sfc.hk/edistributionWeb/gateway/EN/circular/intermediaries/supervision/doc?refNo=19EC46
Instead of reinventing the wheel, I suggest that you buy a US-listed equivalent ETF that tracks "A Shares, B Shares, H Shares, Red Chips, P Chips, S Chips and N Shares" in a similar manner.
For example, iShares MSCI China ETF (MCHI) listed on NASDAQ has $6 billion AUM and closely tracks the China Total Market, and is even more liquid as shown in the chart below.
Blue = MCHI on NASDAQ, Red = 9169 on HKEX
