Dual Lists & Depository Receipts

Most shares are listed and trade on a single stock exchange like the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Borse or the New York Stock Exchange. Foreign investors though may not wish to trade on foreign stock exchanges in a foreign currency even if they find those stocks potentially an attractive investment. If a company believes there is enough demand they may seek to list their shares in a foreign region.

This is often done by either a secondary listing, known as a dual listing, or by creating bundles of primary shares and listing them as ‘depositary receipts’ (DRCs) in the local currency of the foreign exchange.

We provide coverage of dual lists and DRCs in some, but not all, markets. Many dual lists and DRCs are illiquid and rarely traded and most of our subscribers find they create too much noise in our stock screens and ranking systems. If you wish us to add coverage for a DRC or dual list please get in touch.

Dual Lists coverage

We cover all dual listed stocks in the UK market where dual lists are often popular. In European markets we only provide coverage of primary listed shares.

Depository Receipts

American Depository Receipts (ADRs)

In the USA depository receipts are known as ADRs and are a very popular investment vehicle. If a US investor wants to buy the UK’s Vodafone but doesn’t want to open a UK account they can buy the VOD ADR in $$$ on the Nasdaq.

We currently list over 600 ADRs on the Stockopedia website. These include:

• All primary and dual listed ADRs on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) and Nasdaq.
• Primary listed ADRs on the over the counter (OTC and Pink Sheet) Markets.

Note - We mark foreign depositary receipts (DRC) as primary listings under the following circumstances:

• If the underlying shares are unlisted.
• If a listed DR has more trading volume than its underlying shares (e.g. Alibaba).
• When there is no other active Equity instrument associated with the organisation.

There are another 5,500 or so dual listed ADRs on OTC markets, but many are barely traded, liquidity is poor and they create much noise and duplicate listings.

Other Depository Receipt coverage

We also list all primary and dual listed depository receipts on the London Stock Exchange. This creates an additional 350 listings in the UK directory.

For all other markets we only include primary listed depository receipts.

Screening for dual lists and ADRs

In most Stockopedia Screens and StockRank lists dual listed shares are excluded by default. You can include dual listed shares in your own custom screens by clicking the cog icon in the screener form and unchecking the checkbox which says “Exclude Dual Listed Shares”.

While DRCs and Dual Lists are excluded from our lists by default, they are included in our StockRank process. All StockReports will show StockRanks for these instruments.