Introduced to the financial markets in 1927, an 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 broker... ADR's 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. The depositary bank sets the ratio of U.S. ADRs per home-country share. This ratio can be anything less than or greater than 1. This is done because the banks wish to price an ADR high enough to show substantial value, yet low enough to make it affordable for individual investors. Most investors try to avoid investing in penny stocks, and many would shy away from a company trading for 50 Russian roubles per share, which equates to US$1.50 per share. As a result, the majority of ADRs range between $10 and $100 per share. If, in the home country, the shares were worth considerably less, then each ADR would represent several real shares......
There are three different types of ADR issues:
• Level 1 - This is the most basic type of ADR where foreign companies either don't qualify or don't wish to have their ADR listed on an exchange. Level 1 ADRs are found on the over-the-counter market and are an easy and inexpensive way to gauge interest for its securities in North America. Level 1 ADRs also have the loosest requirements from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• Level 2 - This type of ADR is listed on an exchange or quoted on Nasdaq. Level 2 ADRs have slightly more requirements from the SEC, but they also get higher visibility trading volume.
• Level 3 - The most prestigious of the three, this is when an issuer floats a public offering of ADRs on a U.S. exchange. Level 3 ADRs are able to raise capital and gain substantial visibility in the U.S. financial markets.
The advantages of ADRs are twofold. For individuals, ADRs are an easy and cost-effective way to buy shares in a foreign company. They save money by reducing administration costs and avoiding foreign taxes on each transaction. Foreign entities like ADRs because they get more U.S. exposure, allowing them to tap into the wealthy North American equities markets.
Each ADR's Ups or Downs, plus other factors, all added together gives me a direction for each individual stock and the industry each stock…
Personally, I refer to my ADR List every morning so I can see what happened to our Australian ADR's, getting that information helps my research into just what MIGHT happen with stocks on our ASX.....
I mainly look at the ADR Chart & Candles for Technical Signals at their COB, then relate that candle to what we may expect today - then I look at say the last week or two and compare that trend to our equivalent stock......
Then if needed I will conduct further analysis....
Let's use a mythical stock of XYZ as an example, their ADR (XYZ) atm is Down $0.27USD, or 1.39%, so in theory our XYZ, should reflect that % Drop, BUT then you need to add in our Domestic Economic Climate, and our relative Australian problems and Announcements that may occur between the DJIA Closing time, and the End of Our Trading Day, then obtain news of any of those factors that occurred in the "USA" during their Trading Day..... Not easy accessing all that info, but can be done with the help of some American contacts, in other words I try to get the American version/explanation of What Caused the 1.39% drop....
It's not an EXACT Science, but it usually works for me....
There are DOZENS of other Aussie Stocks listed on numerous other Exchanges, like NYSE, OTC, NASDAQ, Germany, NZ, Sth Africa, Canada, etc, etc....
You can find them all by going to the FREE Web Site -
https://www.marketwatch.com
When you get to that site Select "Markets", Then hit the Search Symbol to the right, that gives you a Black Window, where it says "enter a symbol or keyword" you need to try 2 ways, first enter XYZ, then WAIT, DO NOT HIT ENTER, as the search will appear automatically, if that does not produce results, enter "THE FULL COMPANY NAME", that may give the results you are looking for....
Hope you can follow all that....
I would like to point out a minor anomaly - ADR's are usually quoted “in Aussie $$s - the rises and falls are usually against last evening's local USA or UK close" - I prefer to use Bloombergs "Actual Days Trade Figures", they relate to the Days Trade only - so in the USA O'nite if XYZ traded down $1.80 (or 3.07%) during the day, HOWEVER it may have been down 0.57c compared to their yesterdays Close – make sure you understand the diff.