[talky]

Problem is SDR they take the trouble to set up they will try to make back through 2 things

1. Commission
2. Spread.

Should the SDR become illiquid and people not interested in buying and selling the spread depend on market maker who may cause spread to be wide.

If you buy direct you incur a exchange rate some brokerages charge a forex conversion of ard 0.8% ...
yes yr argument s
If you buy and sell often you should have a multi currency account so that you stick to using HK dollar and avoid exchanging to sgd.

If you just buy and hold for a few years both ways of investing will not make a big difference as the commissions and fees are amortized over long periods and would be negligible compared with capital gains/losses.

If short term trading, both are bad  because commissions are high. One way would be to trade the ADRs listed on US instead and use a near zero commission broker like IBKR.

yes yr arguments are fully valid
u hv the choice buying adr or parent shares
in the 1st place adr was created becos buying a lot of some hk shares are fr 100-5000shares depending on the companies u buy. as yr cpital used is ha lot  example 2000 shares x 30hkd =60khkd=ard 9800sgd
anyway hk stock exchange is working in progress to allow buying not in such a big qty of 2000 shares in 1 lot
maybe 1 lot in 10 or like sgx in 100