Buying Miners on the Canadian or US Exchanges?
I am new to the TFMR website and just love it!
I have both Canadian and US trading accounts. I suspect as the Canadian currency is a commodity currency and has been slowly strengthening since mid July against the US dollar, the Canadian dollar will continue to strengthen against the US dollar as gold/silver rise in price.
Most of the miners can be bought on both Canadian and US exchanges. So my big question is, for someone holding long, if the above assumption is correct, is it better to purchase miners now in Canadian dollars on a Canadian exchange or the same miners in US dollars on a US exchange? My guess is to now convert US dollars to Canadian and buy miners on the Canadian exchange in those Canadian dollars
Comments please from the experts!!!
US or CDN exchanges
Whether you buy on a US or CDN exchange the price you pay is pretty well equivalent, given the exchange rate. The same is true when you sell.
There might be value is buying on one one exchange and selling on another to effect a currency conversion without having to pay exorbitant bank forex fees. This requires a need for the currency of the sale and the ability to receive that currency. It's fairly straightforward for Canadians to have both US and CDN bank accounts and many of us have them, but I think much less convenient for US persons.
Liquidity
Whether you buy in CAD on TSX or on a US exchange in USD is equivalent. To avoid currency exchange fees, it is best to have investment accounts in both currencies and minimize cash transfers between them.
The main reason to avoid trading should be scarce liquidity on either exchange. That often is the case for the pink sheets (the 5 letter symbols on US exchanges). A market maker issues this pink sheets and sets a profitable trading margin. The foreign (Canadian) stock is bought or sold to compensate for the net volume balance.
You always end up paying more to buy or getting less when selling US pink sheets than what you would pay or receive when trading directly on TSX.
Major miners have a regular quote on both exchanges with sufficient trading volume. In that case it doesn't really matter where you buy.
