Find out the difference between two stocks of the same company (how to identify ADRs, etc)
Generally, when I run across this kind of situation, I look for the Investor Relations section of the corporate website for a 'Stock Information' (or similar) tab or link.   This usually contains information explaining the different shares classes, how they relate (if at all), voting and/or dividend rights, and taxation differences for the different classes. However, I have trouble finding such a page on a central BYD corporate investor relations page.   I did find this page detailing the HK1211 shares: http://www.byd.com/investor/base_information.html.  I don't know what or why, but something tells me this is an older page. Searching on, I also found this page which looks newer and clarifies that the difference you are seeing is between 'A' and 'H' shares. http://www.byd.cn/BYDEnglish/basic/article.jsp?articleId=1524676.  (I'm guessing but I'd think somewhere in the announcements on this byd.cn site, you may find more details of any structural differences between share classes -- I just didn't want to page through them all.)
Except there are differences between races that are still used today. Just like the two sexes have different bone structures, different races have different bone structures as well (primarily skull differences). If you don't believe me, read into how CSI teams identify remains when only bones are left. "If so, then if company A never pays dividends to its shareholders, then what is the point of owning company A's stock? The stock itself can go up in price. This is not necessarily pure speculation either, the company could just reinvest the profits and grow. Since you own part of a company, your share would also increase in value. The company could also decide to start paying dividend. I think one rule of thumb is that growing companies won't pay out, since they reinvest all profit to grow even more, but very large companies like McDonalds or Microsoft who don't really have much room left to grow will pay dividends more. Surely the right to one vote for company A's Board can't be that valuable.  Actually, Google for instance neither pays dividend nor do you get to vote. Basically all you get for your money is partial ownership of the company. This still gives you the right to seize Google assets if you go bankrupt, if there's any asset left once the creditors are done (credit gets priority over equity). What is it that I'm missing? What you are missing is that the entire concept of the dividend is an illusion. There's little qualitative difference between a stock that pays dividend, and a stock that doesn't. If you were going to buy the stock, then hold it forever and collect dividend, you could get the same thing with a dividend-less stock by simply waiting for it to gain say 5% value, then sell 4.76% of your stock and call the cash your dividend. ""But wait,"" you say, ""that's not the same - my net worth has decreased!"" Guess what, stocks that do pay dividend usually do drop in value right after the pay out, and they drop by about the relative value of the dividend as well. Likewise, you could take a stock that does pay dividend, and make it look exactly like a non-paying stock by simply taking every dividend you get and buying more of the same stock with it. So from this simplistic point of view, it is irrelevant whether the stock itself pays dividend or not. There is always the same decision of whether to cut the goose or let it lay a few more eggs that every shareholder has to make it. Paying a dividend is essentially providing a different default choice, but makes little difference with regards to your choices. There is however more to it than simple return on investment arithmetic: As I said, the alternative to paying dividend is reinvesting profits back into the enterprise. If the company decided to pay out dividend, that means they think all the best investing is done, and they don't really have a particularly good idea for what to do with the extra money. Conversely, not paying is like management telling the shareholders, ""no we're not done, we're still building our business!"". So it can be a way of judging whether the company is concentrating on generating profit or growing itself. Needless to say the, the market is wild and unpredictable and not everyone obeys such assumptions. Furthermore, as I said, you can effectively overrule the decision by increasing or decreasing your position, regardless of whether they have decided to pay dividend to begin with. Lastly, there may be some subtle differences with regards to things like how the income is taxed and so on. These don't really have much to do with the market itself, but the bureaucracy tacked onto the market." "In general, I think you're conflating a lot of ideas.   The stock market is not like a supermarket.  With the exception of a direct issue, you're not buying your shares from the company or from the New York Stock Exchange you're buying from an owner of stock, Joe, Sally, a pension fund, a hedge fund, etc; it's not sitting on a shelf at the stock market. When you buy an Apple stock you don't own $10 of Apple, you own 1/5,480,000,000th of Apple because Apple has 5,480,000,000 shares outstanding.  When a the board gets together to vote on and approve a dividend the approved dividend is then divided by 5.48 billion to determine how much each owner receives.  The company doesn't pay dividends out to owners from a pot of money it received from new owners; it sold iPhones at a profit and is sending a portion of that profit to the owners of the company.   ""When you buy stock, it is claimed that you own a small portion of the   company. This statement has no backing, as you cannot exchange your   stock for the company's assets."" The statement does have backing.  It's backed by the US Judicial system.  But there's a difference between owning a company and owning the assets of the company.  You own 1/5,480,000,000 of the company and the company owns the company's assets.  Nevermind how disruptive it would be if any shareholder could unilaterally decide to sell a company's buildings or other assets. This is not a ponzi scheme because when you buy or sell your Apple stock, it has no impact on Apple, you're simply transacting with another random shareholder (barring a share-repurchase or direct issue).  Apple doesn't receive the proceeds of your private transaction, you do. As far as value goes, yes the stock market provides tons of value and is a staple of capitalism.  The stock market provides an avenue of financing for companies.  Rather than taking a loan, a company's board can choose to relinquish some control and take on additional owners who will share in the spoils of the enterprise.   Additionally, the exchanges deliver value via an unbelievable level of liquidity.  You don't have to go seek out Joe or Sally when you want to sell your Apple stock.  You don't need to put your shares on Craigslist in the hope of finding a buyer.  You don't have to negotiate a price with someone who knows you want to sell.  You just place an order at an exchange and you're aligned with a buyer.   Also understand that anything can move up or down in value without any money actually changing hands.  Say you get your hands on a pair of shoes (or whatever), they're hot on the market, very rare and sought after.  You think you can sell them for $1,000. On tonight's news it turns out that the leather is actually from humans and the CEO of the company is being indicted, the company is falling apart, etc.  Your shoes just went from $1,000 to $0 with no money changing hands (or from $1,000 to $100,000 depending on how cynical you are)." "I think JB King's answer is interesting from the point of view of ""is this good for me"" but the OP's question boils down to ""why would a company do this?"" The company buys back shares when it thinks it will better position the company financially. A Simple Scenario: If Company A wants to open a new store, for example, they need to buy the land, build the store, stock it, etc, etc and this all costs money.  The company can get a loan, use accrued capital, or raise new capital by issuing new stock.  Each method has benefits and drawbacks. One of the drawbacks of issuing new stock is that it dilutes the existing stock's value.  Previously, total company profits were split between x shares.  Now the profits are shared between x+y shares, where y is the number of new shares issued to raise the capital. This normally drives the price of the stock down, since the expected future dividends per stock have decreased. Now the company has a problem: the next time they go to raise money by issuing stock, they will have to issue MORE shares to get the same value - leading to more dilution.  To break out of this cycle, the company can buy back shares periodically.  When the company feels the the stock is sufficiently undervalued, it buys some back.  Now the profits are shared with a smaller pool, and the stock price goes up, and the next time Company A needs to raise capital, it can issue stock. So it probably has little to do with rewarding shareholders, and more to do with lowering the ""cost of capital"" for the company in the future." http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/economix/2014/04/02/the-many-classes-of-google-stock/ Are you counting both class A and other share classes? When you buy a stock, you become a partial owner of the company that the stock is for. As the company is valued at a higher or lower amount, the stock will reflect that by gaining or losing value. You still own that stock. For example, if you bought a stock for $10 per share and next week it is worth $8 dollars per share, the only loss incurred is on paper. You do not have to pay the difference (which I think is what you are asking?) and will only physically lose that money if you sell at that point. Similarly if that stock becomes worth $12, you have only gained money on paper and can only physically see it if you sell at that point. "The IRS rules are actually the same.  26 U.S. Code § 1091 - Loss from wash sales of stock or securities In   the case of any loss claimed to have been sustained from any sale or   other disposition of shares of stock or securities where it appears   that, within a period beginning 30 days before the date of such sale   or disposition and ending 30 days after such date, the taxpayer has   acquired (by purchase or by an exchange on which the entire amount of   gain or loss was recognized by law), or has entered into a contract or   option so to acquire, substantially identical stock or securities,   then no deduction shall be allowed... What you should take away from the quote above is ""substantially identical stock or securities."" With stocks, one company may happen to have a high correlation, Exxon and Mobil come to mind, before their merger of course. With funds or ETFs, the story is different. The IRS has yet to issue rules regarding what level of overlap or correlation makes two funds or ETFs ""substantially identical.""  Last month, I wrote an article, Tax Loss Harvesting, which analyses the impact of taking losses each year. I study the 2000's which showed an average loss of 1% per year, a 9% loss for the decade. Tax loss harvesting made the decade slightly positive, i.e. an annual boost of approx 1%." Stock B could be considered to be more risky because it seems to be more volatile - sharp rises on large volume increases can easily be followed by sharp drops or by further rises in the start of a new uptrend.  However, if both A and B are trading on low volume in general, they can both be more on the risky side due to having relatively low liquidity, especially if you buy a large order compared to the average daily volume. But just looking at the criteria you have included in your question is not enough to determine which stock is riskier than the other, and you should look at this criteria in combination with other indicators and information about each stock to obtain a more complete picture.