Investing on different stock exchanges and liquidity issues

[landlord]

The stocks I have been purchasing recently are purchased by most investors on the Toronto stock exchange. My broker charges me a fortune for trading on this exchange.
I have recently noticed that some of the stocks are available on the German stock exchange.
It seems you can buy these stocks on various different German exchanges as well which is confusing in it self.... (Frankfurt, Berlin, Stuttgart etc....). Could there be issues with liquidity, picking this less used stock exchange. As in you might purchase the stock at a premium and sell the stock at a loss over the actual share price?

 

[galway_blow_in]

The stocks I have been purchasing recently are purchased by most investors on the Toronto stock exchange. My broker charges me a fortune for trading on this exchange.
I have recently noticed that some of the stocks are available on the German stock exchange.
It seems you can buy these stocks on various different German exchanges as well which is confusing in it self.... (Frankfurt, Berlin, Stuttgart etc....). Could there be issues with liquidity, picking this less used stock exchange. As in you might purchase the stock at a premium and sell the stock at a loss over the actual share price?

im open to correction but im pretty sure when it comes to buying german exchange listed securities , its best to pick the one with ETR in the title

i.e , bmw .de . etr , i always look up stocks or etf,s on google finance so the etr bit may not show up elsewhere

i do know that the likes of siemens can also be bought on the french , amsterdam and italian exchange but volume is miniscule compared to frankfurt

 

[Brendan Burgess]

It's a very interesting point, but I doubt if there would be much of a difference as it would be arbitraged away very quickly.

Can you not check the prices on the different exchanges?

Brendan

 

[Jim2007]

It's a very interesting point, but I doubt if there would be much of a difference as it would be arbitraged away very quickly.

This is true. We have many many examples on the Swiss exchange and price differences are usually not an issue. The only concern would be if the company decided to de-list on that exchange due to volume and force a disposal which could have tax implications. While it is possible to transfer a stock to a different exchange it is an expensive option.

 

[sunnydonkey]

Brokers like TD will alow you to trade on the Canadian market at reasonable rates. Be aware however that Canada has a withholding tax regime so you will have to complete some formalities to avoid this.
Be careful about stocks dual listed on german regional exchanges. These can be very illiquid so place orders only with tight limits in place and bear in mind that if you need to sell quickly, you might not get the full Canadian rate. On the other hand it does have the advantage that you will be dealing in Euros.