Harmony Gold Mining Company is listed on the NYSE and JSE at different prices?
The quotes on JSE are for 100 share lots.  The quotes on NYSE are for single shares.  That still leaves some price difference, but much less than you calculated. (EDIT: Equivalently, the price is quoted in 1/100th of a Rand.  The Reuter's listing makes this explicit since the price is listed as ZAc rather than ZAR.  http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=HARJ.J) As noted in the other answer currently up, NYSE is quoting American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) for this company, which is not directly its stock.  The ADR in this case, if you check the prospectus, is currently 1 share of the ADR = 1 share of the stock on its home market.  A US institution (in this case it looks like BNY Mellon) is holding shares of stock to back each ADR. Arbitrage is possible and does happen.  It's not perfect though, because there are a variety of other cost and risk factors that need to be considered.  There's a good review here: Report by JP Morgan Some summary points: On NYSE it isn't the equity which is listed but is an ADR(American Depositary Receipt). Source A negotiable certificate issued by a U.S. bank representing a specified number of shares (or one share) in a foreign stock that is traded on a U.S. exchange. ADRs are denominated in U.S. dollars, with the underlying security held by a U.S. financial institution overseas. ADRs help to reduce administration and duty costs that would otherwise be levied on each transaction. Else people would make a killing on the arbitrage opportunity. Frankly speaking arbitrage opportunities are more or less non existent. They occur for maybe seconds or milliseconds and the HFT firms and banks trade on it to remove the arbitrage.
&gt;Since gold in this very simple hypothetical system has absolutely no use other than a store of value, it is debt.  But gold does have other uses. It is a metal that's used for jewelry, it has decorative value. Exchanging something for gold is like a caveman giving you a stone ax if you do some cave paintings for him.  If all the civilization disappeared, gold would still have a value, different from bank notes.  Gold is a convenient standard commodity for exchange for several reasons: it's indestructible, it's compact, it's easily recognizable. All the gold ever mined in the world would fit inside a typical five-story apartment building. Yet it doesn't burn, doesn't spoil, can be stored forever, different from apples or oranges.  &gt;these firms would be adjusting their capacity, and not sitting on trillions of dollars of currency that ought to be liquid.   Here s where the difference between actual work that has been performed and a promise make a real difference. These companies are sitting on trillions of dollars of promises, not products. What they have is paper, shares, bonds, debentures, whatever.   They are unable to transform those papers into products, because they lack the manufacturing capacity to do so. They do not have a million apples, they have a paper where the farmer said he would grow a million apples.  Overall, the corporations in the US have invested heavily in acquisitions of other corporations, this trend has been going on for several decades now. These papers cannot be easily converted into anything useful. For the moment they are just there, with their nominal value that people agreed upon. It's not easy to turn that investment into production. Amazon Gold Ventures - Craig Thomas's Fc2 Blog  http://craigthomas.blog.fc2.com/   This group of mines are located in the catchment area of work Marmajito underground mine. They are operating the mines Naranjos, La Picuda and Las Brisas. The first two exploit the seam. Marmajito in its lateral extension and the third operates the hearts of the Grain Córdoba. These mines are located in the hamlet Marmajito, south of town the municipality of Segovia.  MINE COORDINATES EAST AND COORDINATES NORTH  Los Naranjos 931,183.64 1'273,730.24 630 550 La Picuda 932,187.87 1'273,114.64 591 500 Las Brisas 930,845.26 1'273,260.24 690 570 The areas granted by the company Frontino Gold Mines in their respective operation contract are:  Los Naranjos: 9 Ha 1281.83 m2  The Picuda: 4 HA 7214.6 m2  Las Brisas: 4 Ha 629.46 m2  These areas are bounded by the following coordinates.  COORDINATE POINT AND COORDINATE N  1 931,173.71 1'273,700.46 2 931,411.94 1'273,827.48 3 931,422.51 1'274,039.10 4 931,092.60 1'274,126.60 COORDINATE E COORDINATE N 1 932,051.43 1'273,191.47 2 932,152.57 1'273,298.64 3 932,404.37 1'273,110.56 4 932,287.72 1'273,000.00 COORDINATE E COORDINATE N 1 930,607.24 1'273,363.31 2 930,814.27 1'273,375.04 3 930,869.35 1'273,219.11 4 930,670.89 1'273,143.91 Marmajito sector mines have operating agreement in effect with the Frontino Gold Mines Company, with a duration of three months, renewable. The areas are well located with respect to farm work today, the Naranjos except mine, which is advancing on a crusade to Córdoba intercepting the vein out of the area. The mine La Picuda has a fixed lower boundary which is already below the lowest level on the contract, are advances are also side that fall outside the allocated area.  Topic:MY WORLD - Genre:Blog "Arbitrage is basically taking advantage of a difference in price.  Generally extending to ""in different places for the same thing"". A monetary version would be interlisted stocks, that is stocks in companies that are on both the NYSE/Nasdaq and Toronto stock exchanges.  If somebody comes along and buys a large number of shares in Toronto, that will tend to make the price go up - standard supply and demand. But if someone else can buy shares instead in NY, and then sell them in Toronto where the first person is buying up shares, where the price is higher, they the the arbitrageur (second person) can make pretty easy money. By its very nature, this tends to bring the prices back in line, as NY will then go up and Toronto will then go down (ignoring FX rates and the like for ease of explanation). The same can work for physical goods, although it does tend to get more complex with taxes, duties, and the like." Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined? Remember that demand increases and decreases - we've had seven years or so of strong demand increase and the corresponding price increase suggests there is a lack of gold coming into the market rather than too much. Also, bear in mind that mining the stuff on any scale is hazardous and requires massive investment in infrastructure and time. Large mines frequently take seven to ten years to come on-stream - hardly an elastic enterprise. Thanks to the other answers, I now know what to google for. Frankfurt Stock Exchange: http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/equities/newissues London Stock Exchange: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/statistics/new-issues-further-issues/new-issues-further-issues.htm Good day! Did a little research by using oldest public company (Dutch East India Company, VOC, traded in Amsterdam Stock Exchange) as search criteria and found this lovely graph from http://www.businessinsider.com/rise-and-fall-of-united-east-india-2013-11?IR=T :  Why it is relevant? Below the image I found the source of data - Global Financial Data. I guess the answer to your question would be to go there: https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/index.html  Hope this helps and good luck in your search! Would you also suggest some stock with interesting returns and risks? Because i tried with FB, GS, JNJ, MCD, F and the have low returns in the last 5 years, so when you compare them to commodities you don't see so much difference in stdev and returns. "Limited Price is probably equivalent to the current par value of a ""limit order"". Markets move fast, and if the commodity is seeing some volatility in the buy and sell prices, if you place an ordinary buy order you may not get the price you were quoted. A ""limit order"" tells your broker or whomever or whatever is making the order on your behalf that you will pay no more than X yuan. While the market is below that price, the trader will attempt to get you the quantity you want, but if they can't get you your full order for an average price less than the limit, the whole thing is rolled back. You can set a limit at any price, but a limit order of 1 yuan for a pound of sterling silver will likely never be executed as long as the market itself is functioning. So, you are being provided with a ""par value"" that they can guarantee will be executed in the current market. Entrustment prices are probably prices offered to the managers of trust funds. A trust is simply a set of securities and/or cash which is placed under the nominal control of a third party, who then must in good faith attempt to fulfill the goals of the actual owner of the securities with regards to growth or retention of value. Trustees almost never speculate with the money they control, but when they do move money it's often a sizeble chunk (hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars instead of a few thousand dollars here and there). So, in return for the long-term holdings, large buys and sells, and thus the reduced cost of maintaining a business relationship with the broker, the broker may offer better prices to trust fund managers."