How to buy the S&P 500 in Moomoo (screenshot for every screen)

This is the question that comes up most after people open an account: “Daus, I want to buy the S&P 500. How?”

It’s easy to see why it’s popular — instead of trying to guess which single company will win, you buy a small piece of America’s 500 biggest companies all at once.

What the S&P 500 actually is

The S&P 500 isn’t a stock. It’s an index — a list of 500 large companies listed in the United States, and one number that measures their combined performance.

You can’t “buy the index” directly. What you buy is an ETFETF (Exchange Traded Fund)A fund that holds many stocks at once, and trades just like a regular stock.See it in the glossary → (Exchange Traded Fund) — a fund that holds the stocks in that index and trades on the exchange just like a regular stock.

Buying one unit of an S&P 500 ETF means you own a very small slice of all 500 of those companies at once.

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Part 1 — Pick the right ETF (this is where people trip up)

1

In the Moomoo app

Search in the app — and read the results carefully

Type VOO in the search bar. Now look at the results in the screenshot beside this. There are five results, and only one tracks the full S&P 500:

• VOO — Vanguard S&P 500 ETF ← this is the one you want
• VOOG — Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF (only growth companies, not all 500)
• VOOV — Vanguard S&P 500 Value ETF (only value companies)
• VOOY — XFUNDS Large Cap Income ETF (not Vanguard at all)
• IVOO — Vanguard S&P Mid-Cap 400 ETF (a completely different index)

This is the same problem as warrants on Bursa Malaysia: the names look almost identical, but the products are different. One extra letter changes what you’re actually buying.

Check the full name, not just the code. The exact name you’re looking for is “Vanguard S&P 500 ETF” — without the words Growth, Value, or Mid-Cap.

⤢These are all DIFFERENT indexes

The right one

The three most common S&P 500 ETFs

All three track the same index. The main difference is the expense ratioExpense ratioA fund's annual management fee, shown as a percentage.See it in the glossary → — the annual management fee — and the price of one unit.

Code	Full name	Notes
VOO	Vanguard S&P 500 ETF	Very low expense ratio, popular for long-term investing
IVV	iShares Core S&P 500 ETF	Equivalent to VOO, from BlackRock
SPY	SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust	Oldest and most actively traded; slightly higher expense ratio

For long-term investing, VOO or IVV are usually the sensible pick. SPY suits more frequent traders better because of its higher liquidity.

Want to see for yourself how close these three really are? The compare stocks & ETFs tutorial puts VOO, SPY, IVV and the Shariah version SPUS side by side in the app — 5-year chart, annual returns, and the real fees.

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Part 2 — The US order screen, and what’s different from Bursa

2

In the Moomoo app

Open the order screen and get to know the extra fields

The order screen for US stocks has two extra fields that Malaysian stocks don’t have. Don’t worry — both are simple.

Look at the screenshot beside this. The fields you already know: Direction, Order Type, Price, Quantity, Amount. The new ones:

• Session — which trading session you want your order active in
• Time-in-Force — how long your order stays alive

And notice Quantity: 1.

This is the biggest and most reassuring difference: US stocks have no concept of a lot. You can buy just one unit. There’s no 100-unit minimum like Bursa Malaysia, so there’s no odd lotOdd lotA share quantity that isn't a multiple of 100 — for example 50 or 130 shares.See it in the glossary → problem at all.

Right at the bottom there are two buying-power numbers:

• Max Qty to Buy (Cash) — how much you can afford with your own cash
• Max Qty to Buy — a bigger number, because it includes margin (borrowed money)

Use the Cash number. The bigger number means borrowing to invest, and that’s not where a beginner should start.

⤢Use the Cash number, not margin

SessionTypePriceQtyTIF

3

In the Moomoo app

Session — choose Regular Trading Hours

Tap the Session field and two options appear:

RTH+Pre/Post-Mkt (4:00–20:00 ET) — your order can be filled during pre-market and after-hours sessions, on top of regular hours.

Regular Trading Hours (9:30–16:00 ET) — only while the main market is open.

For beginners, choose Regular Trading Hours.

Here’s why: during pre-market and after-hours, trading volume is much lower. The spread between Bid and Ask widens, and prices can swing wildly on a small volume. You could get a much worse price without even realizing what happened.

Regular hours have the most buyers and sellers — and that’s what you want.

⤢

Choose this

4

In the Moomoo app

Time-in-Force — Day or GTC

This field decides how long your order stays alive if it doesn’t get filled.

Day — the order cancels itself automatically at the end of the trading day.

GTC (Good Till Cancelled) — the order stays active until it’s filled or you cancel it yourself, across multiple days.

For starting out, use Day.

The reason isn’t technical, it’s psychological. A Day order forces you to make a conscious decision every day. A GTC order can sit forgotten for three weeks, then suddenly get filled in market conditions that have completely changed — and you don’t even remember why you placed it.

⤢

Day

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Part 3 — The currency thing

This is the part most Malaysians overlook, and it has a real effect on your returns.

US stocks and ETFs trade in USD. Your money in Moomoo is most likely in MYR.

Here’s a rule that surprises a lot of people, and it’s written right there on the Exchange screen in the app:

Conversion of Ringgit Malaysia to foreign currencies is only permitted following a filled buy order denominated in the relevant foreign currency.

In plain language: you cannot convert MYR to USD in advance as preparation. Conversion is only allowed after you have a buy order that’s already been filled in that currency.

So the actual flow looks like this:

1. Submit your buy order in USD even though your USD balance is zero
2. When the order is filled, the system converts your MYR to USD automatically at the current rate
3. After that, the Exchange screen can be used to manage your currency balance

The Exchange screen is at Accounts → All → Funds → Exchange. It shows the current Reference Rate — in the screenshot below, 1 MYR ≈ 0.24382 USD. Notice the small note below it: that reference rate is for information only, and the actual rate you get can differ depending on the foreign exchange market.

⤢Reference rateImportant rule — read this

FromTo

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US market hours in Malaysian time

The main US market is open 9:30am to 4:00pm Eastern Time (ET). In Malaysian time, that means:

• Standard time (November – March): roughly 10:30pm – 5:00am
• Daylight saving time (March – November): roughly 9:30pm – 4:00am

Yes, it shifts by an hour twice a year. Don’t memorize it. The app always shows the market status next to the stock name — if it says Market Closed, the price you see is the last closing price, not a live one.

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Fractional shares — buying part of a unit

Moomoo supports fractional sharesFractional sharesBuying a fraction of one whole share.See it in the glossary → for some US stocks and ETFs. That means you can buy part of a single unit.

If one unit of VOO costs USD700 and you only have USD100 to invest, you can buy about 0.14 units. You still get the same proportional exposure, and still get dividends proportionally.

This is very useful for small, regular monthly investing. If you want to automate it, check out the RSP tutorial.

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Summary: the full steps

1. Make sure you have cash in your account (MYR or USD)
2. Search for VOO and confirm its full name is Vanguard S&P 500 ETF
3. Tap Trade, enter your trading password
4. Set Session to Regular Trading Hours
5. Set Order Type to Limit, and set the price at the current Ask
6. Enter the Quantity — you can start with 1 unit
7. Set Time-in-Force to Day
8. Check the Amount and Max Qty to Buy (Cash)
9. Tap Buy and confirm

After that, don’t check it every day. Index ETFs are built to be held for years, not watched every hour.

⤢Play money, not real money