An American's View:
Is this an indication of what is in store for us?????? They wanted BII on the nasdaq. Stay alert guys!!!
Investing in Canadian Stocks: Leave it to the Canadians 1/29/99
Chris Agarwal
Many of you have been asking us how to trade Canadian stocks. When we published an article about Canadian stocks a few weeks ago, we wanted to expose you to the emerging market in Canada. As for trading these stocks, that may be something better suited for Canadians. One of our users posted this on our Yahoo! Club. This explains the interesting situation quite well:
"Canada has four primary stock exchanges. In descending order of importance:
Toronto (TSE), Montreal (ME), Vancouver (VSE), Alberta (ASE). The exchanges trade similar to the NYSE or AMEX. I would tend to stick to stocks traded on the TSE as the other markets are less liquid and excluding the ME have been known to be somewhat manipulated. Stocks such as Bid.com have been known to trade 5 million to 15 million shares in a day on the TSE. Volatility is significantly less than on NASDAQ however liquidity is good for popular issues.
Canada does not have a liquid OTC equivalent to NASDAQ. Canada does have an OTC market that is interchangeably called "OTC", "Canadian OTC", "CDN" (Canadian Dealers Network), or "COATS". I would recommend against purchasing stocks that trade on this market because of liquidity concerns. Spreads are
larger and liquidity is akin to the OTC-Bulletin Board and sometimes the Pink Sheets. In general, the CDN is not considered a respectable market by the savvy investor. Many U.S. brokers do not allow you to buy stocks on the CDN."
In conclusion here, there are some fabulous investment opportunities on the Canadian exchanges, however the markets are highly regulated and therefore not as volatile as the U.S. markets which takes out much of the fun and, with Internet stocks, takes away the high valuations and possible trading profits. Almost no online brokers allow trading of Canadian stocks. The U.S. markets are the prime choice for emerging companies today. One thing to look for is Canadian companies seeking U.S. listings on the OTC BB or Nasdaq exchanges. This may often symbolize that these companies know the problems associated with the Canadian markets but that they still want to succeed. Over the next 12 months, I expect several companies such as Bid.com, Internet Direct, and others to seek U.S. listings as they have become too big for their respective exchanges.
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