Facebook equity on many markets?

[Eric Ndoukoue]

Hi,

I was doing a research on finance.yahoo.com about Facebook equity and found out that the company is registered on many markets: as facebook inc on Nasdaq, but also as facebook-A on many other markets in Germany like XETRA, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, just to name a few (symbols = FB2A.X, with X representing the different Germany cities). Each has a different quote.

What does this mean? Does this mean Facebook actually has many quotes and its real quotation is the sum of all of these, or is it a technical thing?

I have to admit that i am illiterate as to investing so please forgive me if my questions are a little simple. Can you please help me understand the basics on quotes on different marketplaces, with company,inc and company-As?

Thank you

[greenglow560]

Facebook is listed on many different markets around the world because they want to give people the opportunity to buy stock in the company. The reason for the different quote is primarily because they are denominated in different currencies. For example the Euro in the European-based exchanges.

Therefore, all the different quotes don't sum up to the price of facebook in the United States, but are actually comparable to the price in the United States exchange. Essentially, you're trading the same share in FB...just in a different currency

So, FB's stock price in the United States could hypothetically be
$30.50 = $27.80 Euros = 30.20 Canadian Dollars = 4500 Yen...etc

Fb is not the only example. AAPL, Royal Dutch Shell (aka Shell Oil), Sony, Microsoft are just a few more examples.

What happens is that msot of the time companies will list their stock on the primary exchange in the country they're headquartered in. Then they will list their stock on exchanges outside of their primary base....also known as 'Depository Receipts'. When an foreign-based company does it in the United States, it's known as an American Depository Receipt (ADR).

Hope this helps