Friday, February 20, 2009

Arbitrage

Ok so as I have been learning and researching some investment ideas/strategies I discovered this:

Nortel Networks is listed on both US (NRTLQ) and Canadian exchanges (NT).

NT closing price: $0.10 CAD
NRTLQ closing price: $0.0840 USD
USDCAD ask price: 1.2522

1. Buy 1000 shares of NT for $100.00 CAD
2. Sell 1000 shares of NRTLQ for $84.00 USD
3. Sell $84.00 USD for CAD @ 1.2522 or $105.18 CAD

Realized profit: $105.18 CAD - $100.00 CAD = $5.18 CAD.

Now how would you close this out?

Yes you are long and short Nortel, but will the broker you are selling NRTLQ from accept NT stocks as the cover?


EDIT: Checked my personal bank's website, they are quoting 1.2246 for usd into cad, making 84.00 USD into $102.87 CAD *checked using their fx calculator, convert from x to y*. Realized profit of $2.87 CAD. Will pose question to my broker tomorrow on this subject.

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