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market_rouletteI'm about once a month going to be crushed by work. jamethiel has been unbelievably understanding about this, and you and the community have been too, and I thank you for it. In my defense, I didn't know when they said monthly builds, they meant that each build would be the same size as the builds we did when they were every two to three months and we had a staff cut. So. For the foreseeable future, God help me, I'll be absentish a week or so. That doesn't mean not to email me directly or I'm out of contact. It just means for about five to seven days, I don't even look at LJ or DW or write really tl;dr essays.
Recap for those playing the home game:
Now the challenge:
for everyone who responded, USD$10 is added to your total for this month.
lebannen, however, gets the full USD$25, for both getting the answer even though I think she's not sure why, but also for picking up the concept of the ISIN and the fact that every one of these has a different ticker. Very, very good job, seriously. I'm totally raising the challenge amount next time I give one.
Her answer:
And we transition to a combination of things that are going to be confusing, but just go with it. It will get clearer the more you trade; that's why I'm encouraging as much trading as possible this month and hopefully next month.
And now your explanation: they're different, even though they're the same company. In the recap, we talked about how companies don't multilist often. And yet, I can still buy China Telecom in the US. This is the beauty of an ADR, an SDR, and a GDR.
So your cheese selection--work with the grocery store metaphor--may involve a lot of cheese with names you can't pronounce. If you go to a high end grocery store, you may be faced with a cheese selection complete with tiny flags to represent the country of origin and based on milk from animals you weren't entirely aware qualified as mammals. Or perhaps even existed. Some of the price is based on content, rarity, how hard it is to milk a camel or a platypus (hint: I wouldn't try), but some of it is import fees; buying from countries with whom you have no free-trade or any trade agreement means that on top of the price, there's a fee for the privilege of buying it.
Oh capitalism.
Stocks don't have import fees, per se (this is not an actually true answer, but for our purposes, it's a functional one); they have depositories.
Depository Receipts
My first link is to the ADR, or the American Depository Receipt; it's Americancentric, but having read teh equivalent of about fifty stock exchanges, these and GDRs (Global Depository Receipts) are the most commonly seen so far. They're also teh easiest for me to find with my Chinese and Arabic dictionaries when the sites don't have an English version, and I'll be honest, I am so not gifted in languages, so it's slow going.
ADR Basics from investopedia is a pretty good explanation.
Quote:
That's a way around the listing thing. The company isn't listed, but it's ADR is. A company being listed and a ADR being listed aren't the same thing, though for our purposes, there's not that much difference but in price.
A Global Depository Receipt (GDR) is pretty much the same thing, just not American.
Quote:
Here is the complete definition and links to more about Depositry Receipts. They aren't just American; any country can issue them. Hong Kong can give DRs for Pfizer, or Arab Emirates can issue for South Sea Pearls (these are imaginary examples; I have not found these things yet).
ADRs/GDRs/DRs are about market demand, politics, and trade all three. No country does a pure free market that works only with consumer or buyer demand.
Now we're getting to practical stuff.
Technical Aside
On the MasterList I changed around some things and added the Stock List back in. It's the sheet named StockList. Google functions has a 1,000 function limit and I couldn't figure out a way to get around it, so I spent a weekend learning googledocs imports. The list there is basically a mirror of MasterData, where I'm doing the actual stock updates. Then they get to project there.
In February, God willing, each of your individual spreadsheets will have a copy of this page. It won't be editable, simply an insta!updated reflection of the Stock List that you can refer to. Eventually, each of your individual pages will only show the exchanges you can buy from and you'll become a discerning stock shopper by comparing price.
Tickers
We'll start with an example company from the list
You'll notice the different symbols.
1.) Different exchanges may use different symbols for the same company. Sometimes because they use a different format (number versus letter). Sometimes because in the stock exchanges home country, someone is already using a letter combo and the foreign stock will have to get a new one. Sometimes I have no clue what the hell, though I'm sure there's a good reason. There are many reasons the ticker might change.
2.) Different websites may use the same symbols, but different suffixes or prefixes. For example, using the same compnay.
Aluminum Corporation of China as listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE):
On Yahoo Financial US/UK/Canada: 601600.SS
On Bloomberg, Businessweek US: 601600:CH
On Google Finance, US: SHA:601600
Before you quit the game and the concept of stock exchanges altogether:
1.) As a rule, except here, you will rarely have to care about this. Brokerages do all the translating, listing, and etc for you.
2.) Really, they will. Breathe.
However, we're not playing by brokerage terms; we're playing internationally. Knowing this will not just get you points in the next challenge; knowing how to read this will make sure you can shop like this is a Black Friday sale and you're at the front of the pack.
Leaving aside the prefixes and suffixes, all of these have the same number in common. If you consistently only go to one site to get your stock info--say, yahoo--then knowing that different sites use different prefixes and suffixes won't affect you. Usually, at any site, you can simply enter the name of the company and get a list of stocks with that name or one like it.
Here are the results for Aluminum Company of China in Yahoo UK:
List of stocks with the word aluminum in them. To do this, write as many words in the company name as you choose, and a drop down will appear. At the bottom of the drop down, click the tiny blue link that says "Show all results for aluminum". And you get this page.
Yes, that's a lot of stocks that aren't, in fact, Aluminum Company of China. We'll get to that later, but suffice to say, find the ones that do. Look to the far right and you'll see the word Exchange and beneath it is the list of exchanges in symbol form. That acronym can also be dependent on website, but clicking hte link will take you to the main page, and there by the second listing of the company name, it tells you the stock exchange with a more standard acronym. If you are still not sure, ther'es a grey line below the stocck statistics that says something like this:
Currency acronyms are standard. Mostly. DataSheetRO has country, currency name, currency acronym, and currency symbol listed. This is not a perfect method either, but again, for our purposes, it's functional. As you get more familiar, you'll be aware of discrepancies.
But Will This Affect Gameplay?
Yes and no. Any problems that come up due to ticker/market problems won't count against anyone. Those will be fixed by the mods when they're brought to our attention without penalty the first six months. The second six months, we'll talk about at game review, where everyone will hopefully criticize us to death on what needs fixing and changing and alteration.
I don't anticipate this will ever be a big problem for anyone, tbh.
The Challenge
I'm glad you asked!
Company: China Telecom
HKEX: HK$ 4.14
NYSE: USD$52.98
Buenos Aires: PhP100.90
Look at that is confusing; it might help to get their tickers.
Company: China Telecom
Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX): 0728:HK (from Yahoo Finance)
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): CHA (from Yahoo Finance)
Buenos Aires Stock Exchange (BCBA): CHA.BA (from Yahoo Finance)
It might also help to see the name they're trading under.
Company: China Telecom
Hong Kong Stock Exchanges (HKEX): China Telecom
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): China Telecom Corp Ltd ADS
On the NYSE, this stock trades as an American Depository Share. If you want it, and you're not living in China or possibly a country with a trade agreement with China/Hong Kong, you're going ot pay extra for the privilege of owning it by getting the ADR of it.
lebannen pretty much nailed it. While it's the same company, the stocks were different. In Hong Kong, you can just buy bits of the company. In the US, you have to buy it through an ADR.
Gameplay
On April 1, 2011, if your home stock exchange has the DR version of a stock (but not the company itself listed), or it lists the stock but at a higher price, and you want that stock, you have to buy it there, even if it's cheaper in Hong Kong. If your country has no version of this stock, then you can be a smart shopper and buy from any of the exchanges listed as open to everyone.
To be honest, this won't come up much, and the price difference will rarely be this dramatic.jamethiel and I won't penalize if we have to make that kind of change.
Potential Stock Exchange Changes
Currently, Deutsche Borsch is negotiating with the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) to add it to Xetra. If that goes through, then some if not all stock listed only on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) will be available to all players via Xetra.
Also currently, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is negotiating with Singapore. If that goes through before Xetra, Singapore and Australian players will be able to buy freely in each other's markets.
Xetra will be another entry entirely because it's what could be called a revolution in stock trading.
And that's it. Feel free to post questions, corrections, additions, or if you have specific questions about how any of this pertains to your stock exchange. I have google translations, babelfish, several dictionaries, and I no longer fear sites written entirely in Chinese. Mostly. We have several months before any market rules go into effect and I want everyone completely comfortable with the change before it starts.
This is a lot of information and if you understand it all on the first go, I'm deeply impressed. Familiarity is going to be what works for you here; the more you buy and sell and read tickers and company names, the easier this will be to internalize. Trust me when I say this, there's a reason I was religious investing the first six months I was trading, and I traded a lot in that period of time. For these two months, the more you examine the stocks you want to buy, the more you buy, the more you just trade, the easier it will be to absorb.
Transaction Log, Alpha Version is where you can do all your stock additions. It even timestamps it on the spreadsheet. After you complete the form, you can verify your results here. You can also still use reply to the monday posts. If you do both, please say so in the comment; me and my comod will eventually either add those by hand to the transaction log or use the form.
I'm getting ambitious with googledocs.
Recommended Sites
Businessweek is one of my current favorites now with the drop down that lets you look at the stock on otehr exchanges.
Example: For Aluminum Company of China go to the line below (ACH: New York); at the very end of that line is ACH on Other Exchanges.
Currently for stock quotes, I'm pulling from Google, Yahoo, and Businessweek for the spreadsheets to get around the 1,000 function rule.
Suggestions
If anyone has any suggestions or requests on what you'd like to see posted for information or breakdowns, please suggest; leaving me to my own devices ends up with cheese metaphors.
Finally
Happy trading! I'll be making the next Monday post and part four of 'you and the stock exchanges of the world'. Hopefully it will be much less of an infodump than this one.
Happy trading!
ETA: Transaction Log Questions
A few questions from the Transaction log:
Question:
Is it easier if I write down the number of stocks that I want to buy, or is it fine if I just mention the amount I want to invest?
Answer:
Amount to invest is easier on your math. You can't be sure how much it will go for during the date and time. It could plummet or go up very high.
Question:
I'm not ever quite sure what to put on the international y/n question.
Answer:
See, I really like making forms, and I like being really anal about it, and the way the forms are set up is very--linear. Make a form and then go back adn add questions, you'll see what I mean. It got to my aesthetics big time.
Eventually, this question will come into gameplay for certain types of stocks, and you will be given a full explanation. For now, it's just tossed in for future use. Kind of like the mod area where eventually, mods will do something. Maybe.
I'm going to try and shorten the log eventually so there's not quite so many pages. It will look pretty much like it does now, however, no matter how form-happy I get. Though God do I love forms.
Now you can go back to trading.
jamethiel has been unbelievably understanding about this, and you and the community have been too, and I thank you for it. In my defense, I didn't know when they said monthly builds, they meant that each build would be the same size as the builds we did when they were every two to three months and we had a staff cut. So. For the foreseeable future, God help me, I'll be absentish a week or so. That doesn't mean not to email me directly or I'm out of contact. It just means for about five to seven days, I don't even look at LJ or DW or write really tl;dr essays.Recap for those playing the home game:
Stock Exchange - a company or entity that facilitates the buying and trading of securities (such as stock). It is located in a place, but it is not a place. It is a company.
Listing - companies that can sell securities on an exchange. They do not do this themselves as a rule. They get a member of the exchange to do it.
Membership - companies that do the buying and the selling. Sometimes, they cause the Great Depression. Sometimes, they don't.
Most stocks do not list in multiple exchanges; they do a primary listing and a secondary listing. There are exceptions to this, and they are legion, but they are the exception not the rule.
Now the challenge:
Challenge
First answer wins for the value of $25 (convert to your currency) added to this month. That's a lot of shares of South Sea Pearls:
China Telecom
HKEX: HK$ 4.14
NYSE: USD$52.98
Buenos Aires: PhP100.90
Does anyone know why it's this expensive at NYSE? This is findable on Yahoo Financial, all versions that I checked.
for everyone who responded, USD$10 is added to your total for this month.
lebannen, however, gets the full USD$25, for both getting the answer even though I think she's not sure why, but also for picking up the concept of the ISIN and the fact that every one of these has a different ticker. Very, very good job, seriously. I'm totally raising the challenge amount next time I give one. Her answer:
They are all different [things]. CHA is the expensive one, 0728.HK is the same one trading as ZCH.x where x is various European countries, and then there's the Argentine one. As a bonus, it's also a different [thing] in Pakistan.
My comprehension of this subject does not yet reach an way of working out what and why these [things] are different. But now I know that ISINs exist, yay?
And we transition to a combination of things that are going to be confusing, but just go with it. It will get clearer the more you trade; that's why I'm encouraging as much trading as possible this month and hopefully next month.
And now your explanation: they're different, even though they're the same company. In the recap, we talked about how companies don't multilist often. And yet, I can still buy China Telecom in the US. This is the beauty of an ADR, an SDR, and a GDR.
So your cheese selection--work with the grocery store metaphor--may involve a lot of cheese with names you can't pronounce. If you go to a high end grocery store, you may be faced with a cheese selection complete with tiny flags to represent the country of origin and based on milk from animals you weren't entirely aware qualified as mammals. Or perhaps even existed. Some of the price is based on content, rarity, how hard it is to milk a camel or a platypus (hint: I wouldn't try), but some of it is import fees; buying from countries with whom you have no free-trade or any trade agreement means that on top of the price, there's a fee for the privilege of buying it.
Oh capitalism.
Stocks don't have import fees, per se (this is not an actually true answer, but for our purposes, it's a functional one); they have depositories.
Depository Receipts
My first link is to the ADR, or the American Depository Receipt; it's Americancentric, but having read teh equivalent of about fifty stock exchanges, these and GDRs (Global Depository Receipts) are the most commonly seen so far. They're also teh easiest for me to find with my Chinese and Arabic dictionaries when the sites don't have an English version, and I'll be honest, I am so not gifted in languages, so it's slow going.
ADR Basics from investopedia is a pretty good explanation.
Quote:
American depositary receipt (ADR) is a stock that trades in the United States but represents a specified number of shares in a foreign corporation. ADRs are bought and sold on American markets just like regular stocks, and are issued/sponsored in the U.S. by a bank or brokerage.
ADRs were introduced as a result of the complexities involved in buying shares in foreign countries and the difficulties associated with trading at different prices and currency values. For this reason, U.S. banks simply purchase a bulk lot of shares from the company, bundle the shares into groups, and reissues them on either the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), American Stock Exchange (AMEX) or the Nasdaq. In return, the foreign company must provide detailed financial information to the sponsor bank.
That's a way around the listing thing. The company isn't listed, but it's ADR is. A company being listed and a ADR being listed aren't the same thing, though for our purposes, there's not that much difference but in price.
A Global Depository Receipt (GDR) is pretty much the same thing, just not American.
Quote:
1. A bank certificate issued in more than one country for shares in a foreign company. The shares are held by a foreign branch of an international bank. The shares trade as domestic shares, but are offered for sale globally through the various bank branches.
2. A financial instrument used by private markets to raise capital denominated in either U.S. dollars or euros.
Here is the complete definition and links to more about Depositry Receipts. They aren't just American; any country can issue them. Hong Kong can give DRs for Pfizer, or Arab Emirates can issue for South Sea Pearls (these are imaginary examples; I have not found these things yet).
ADRs/GDRs/DRs are about market demand, politics, and trade all three. No country does a pure free market that works only with consumer or buyer demand.
Now we're getting to practical stuff.
Technical Aside
On the MasterList I changed around some things and added the Stock List back in. It's the sheet named StockList. Google functions has a 1,000 function limit and I couldn't figure out a way to get around it, so I spent a weekend learning googledocs imports. The list there is basically a mirror of MasterData, where I'm doing the actual stock updates. Then they get to project there.
In February, God willing, each of your individual spreadsheets will have a copy of this page. It won't be editable, simply an insta!updated reflection of the Stock List that you can refer to. Eventually, each of your individual pages will only show the exchanges you can buy from and you'll become a discerning stock shopper by comparing price.
Tickers
We'll start with an example company from the list
Company: Aluminum Corporation of China
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): ACH
Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE): 606600:CH
You'll notice the different symbols.
1.) Different exchanges may use different symbols for the same company. Sometimes because they use a different format (number versus letter). Sometimes because in the stock exchanges home country, someone is already using a letter combo and the foreign stock will have to get a new one. Sometimes I have no clue what the hell, though I'm sure there's a good reason. There are many reasons the ticker might change.
2.) Different websites may use the same symbols, but different suffixes or prefixes. For example, using the same compnay.
Aluminum Corporation of China as listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE):
On Yahoo Financial US/UK/Canada: 601600.SS
On Bloomberg, Businessweek US: 601600:CH
On Google Finance, US: SHA:601600
Before you quit the game and the concept of stock exchanges altogether:
1.) As a rule, except here, you will rarely have to care about this. Brokerages do all the translating, listing, and etc for you.
2.) Really, they will. Breathe.
However, we're not playing by brokerage terms; we're playing internationally. Knowing this will not just get you points in the next challenge; knowing how to read this will make sure you can shop like this is a Black Friday sale and you're at the front of the pack.
Leaving aside the prefixes and suffixes, all of these have the same number in common. If you consistently only go to one site to get your stock info--say, yahoo--then knowing that different sites use different prefixes and suffixes won't affect you. Usually, at any site, you can simply enter the name of the company and get a list of stocks with that name or one like it.
Here are the results for Aluminum Company of China in Yahoo UK:
List of stocks with the word aluminum in them. To do this, write as many words in the company name as you choose, and a drop down will appear. At the bottom of the drop down, click the tiny blue link that says "Show all results for aluminum". And you get this page.
Yes, that's a lot of stocks that aren't, in fact, Aluminum Company of China. We'll get to that later, but suffice to say, find the ones that do. Look to the far right and you'll see the word Exchange and beneath it is the list of exchanges in symbol form. That acronym can also be dependent on website, but clicking hte link will take you to the main page, and there by the second listing of the company name, it tells you the stock exchange with a more standard acronym. If you are still not sure, ther'es a grey line below the stocck statistics that says something like this:
Quotes delayed, except where indicated otherwise. Currency in USD.
Currency acronyms are standard. Mostly. DataSheetRO has country, currency name, currency acronym, and currency symbol listed. This is not a perfect method either, but again, for our purposes, it's functional. As you get more familiar, you'll be aware of discrepancies.
But Will This Affect Gameplay?
Yes and no. Any problems that come up due to ticker/market problems won't count against anyone. Those will be fixed by the mods when they're brought to our attention without penalty the first six months. The second six months, we'll talk about at game review, where everyone will hopefully criticize us to death on what needs fixing and changing and alteration.
I don't anticipate this will ever be a big problem for anyone, tbh.
The Challenge
I'm glad you asked!
Company: China Telecom
HKEX: HK$ 4.14
NYSE: USD$52.98
Buenos Aires: PhP100.90
Look at that is confusing; it might help to get their tickers.
Company: China Telecom
Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX): 0728:HK (from Yahoo Finance)
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): CHA (from Yahoo Finance)
Buenos Aires Stock Exchange (BCBA): CHA.BA (from Yahoo Finance)
It might also help to see the name they're trading under.
Company: China Telecom
Hong Kong Stock Exchanges (HKEX): China Telecom
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): China Telecom Corp Ltd ADS
On the NYSE, this stock trades as an American Depository Share. If you want it, and you're not living in China or possibly a country with a trade agreement with China/Hong Kong, you're going ot pay extra for the privilege of owning it by getting the ADR of it.
lebannen pretty much nailed it. While it's the same company, the stocks were different. In Hong Kong, you can just buy bits of the company. In the US, you have to buy it through an ADR.Gameplay
On April 1, 2011, if your home stock exchange has the DR version of a stock (but not the company itself listed), or it lists the stock but at a higher price, and you want that stock, you have to buy it there, even if it's cheaper in Hong Kong. If your country has no version of this stock, then you can be a smart shopper and buy from any of the exchanges listed as open to everyone.
To be honest, this won't come up much, and the price difference will rarely be this dramatic.
jamethiel and I won't penalize if we have to make that kind of change. Potential Stock Exchange Changes
Currently, Deutsche Borsch is negotiating with the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) to add it to Xetra. If that goes through, then some if not all stock listed only on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) will be available to all players via Xetra.
Also currently, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is negotiating with Singapore. If that goes through before Xetra, Singapore and Australian players will be able to buy freely in each other's markets.
Xetra will be another entry entirely because it's what could be called a revolution in stock trading.
And that's it. Feel free to post questions, corrections, additions, or if you have specific questions about how any of this pertains to your stock exchange. I have google translations, babelfish, several dictionaries, and I no longer fear sites written entirely in Chinese. Mostly. We have several months before any market rules go into effect and I want everyone completely comfortable with the change before it starts.
This is a lot of information and if you understand it all on the first go, I'm deeply impressed. Familiarity is going to be what works for you here; the more you buy and sell and read tickers and company names, the easier this will be to internalize. Trust me when I say this, there's a reason I was religious investing the first six months I was trading, and I traded a lot in that period of time. For these two months, the more you examine the stocks you want to buy, the more you buy, the more you just trade, the easier it will be to absorb.
Transaction Log, Alpha Version is where you can do all your stock additions. It even timestamps it on the spreadsheet. After you complete the form, you can verify your results here. You can also still use reply to the monday posts. If you do both, please say so in the comment; me and my comod will eventually either add those by hand to the transaction log or use the form.
I'm getting ambitious with googledocs.
Recommended Sites
Businessweek is one of my current favorites now with the drop down that lets you look at the stock on otehr exchanges.
Example: For Aluminum Company of China go to the line below (ACH: New York); at the very end of that line is ACH on Other Exchanges.
Currently for stock quotes, I'm pulling from Google, Yahoo, and Businessweek for the spreadsheets to get around the 1,000 function rule.
Suggestions
If anyone has any suggestions or requests on what you'd like to see posted for information or breakdowns, please suggest; leaving me to my own devices ends up with cheese metaphors.
Finally
Happy trading! I'll be making the next Monday post and part four of 'you and the stock exchanges of the world'. Hopefully it will be much less of an infodump than this one.
Happy trading!
ETA: Transaction Log Questions
A few questions from the Transaction log:
Question:
Is it easier if I write down the number of stocks that I want to buy, or is it fine if I just mention the amount I want to invest?
Answer:
Amount to invest is easier on your math. You can't be sure how much it will go for during the date and time. It could plummet or go up very high.
Question:
I'm not ever quite sure what to put on the international y/n question.
Answer:
See, I really like making forms, and I like being really anal about it, and the way the forms are set up is very--linear. Make a form and then go back adn add questions, you'll see what I mean. It got to my aesthetics big time.
Eventually, this question will come into gameplay for certain types of stocks, and you will be given a full explanation. For now, it's just tossed in for future use. Kind of like the mod area where eventually, mods will do something. Maybe.
I'm going to try and shorten the log eventually so there's not quite so many pages. It will look pretty much like it does now, however, no matter how form-happy I get. Though God do I love forms.
Now you can go back to trading.
