Buy securities at another stock exchange
In a simple statement, no doesn't matter. Checked on my trade portal, everything lines up. Same ISIN, same price(after factoring in FX conversions, if you were thinking about arbitrage those days are long gone).  But a unusual phenomenon I have observed is, if you aren't allowed to buy/sell a stock in one market and try to do that in a different market for the same stock you will still not be allowed to do it. Tried it on French stocks as my current provider doesn't allow me to deal in French stocks. Different exchanges sometimes offer different order types, and of course have different trading fees.  But once a trade is finished, it should not matter where it was executed. Also important to keep in mind is the difference in liquidity. The stock could be very liquid in 1 exchange but not in another. When times get bad, liquidity could dry up 1 one exchange, which results in a trading discount. "Really arbitrage means that, currency risk aside, it shouldn't matter which exchange you buy on in price terms alone. Arbitrage will always make sure that the prices are equivalent otherwise high frequency traders can make free money off the difference. In practical terms liquidity and brokerage costs usually make trading on the ""home"" exchange more worthwhile as any limit orders etc will be filled at a better price as you will more easily find a counterparty to your trade. Obviously that will only be an issue where your quantity is significant enough to move the market on a given exchange. The volume needed to move a market is dependent upon the liquidity of the particular stock." Yes, it does matter very much. There's a thing called fungible instruments. These are the instruments where it doesn't matter. E.g. most options I ever dealt with in the US are fungible no matter which US exchange you trade them on. A fungible instrument is an instrument where you buy 1 lot on exchange A, then sell 1 lot on exchange B, and as a result you have 0 lots.  With another instrument, you can buy 1 lot on exchange A, sell 1 lot on exchange B, and even tough they are the exact same thing, you now own 1, and owe 1 - they don't cancel each other out. Other than that, in different countries there are obviously different laws and regulations. For a small at home trader who just gambles for fun and isn't interested in negative positions (sell what you don't have), there isn't much of a difference . I think that's what the other answers are saying.
Questrade is a Canada based broker offering US stock exchange transactions as well. It says this right on their homepage. ETFs are traded like stocks, so the answer is yes.  Why did you think they only offered funds? I was wondering what relations are between brokerage companies and exchanges? Are brokers representing investors to trade on exchanges? Yes...but a broker may also buy and sell stocks for his own account. This is called broker-delaer firm. For individual investors, what are some cons and pros of trading on the exchanges directly versus indirectly via brokers? Doesn't the former save the investors any costs/expenses paid to the brokers? Yes, but to trade directly on an exchange, you need to register with them. That costs money and only a limited number of people can register I believe. Note that some (or all?) exchanges have their websites where I think trading can be done electronically, such as NASDAQ and BATS? Can almost all stocks be found and traded on almost every exchange? In other words, is it possible that a popular stock can only be found and traded on one exchange, but not found on the other exchange? If needed to be more specific, I am particularly interested in the U.S. case,and for example, Apple's stock. Yes, it is very much possible with smaller companies. Big companies are usually on multiple exchanges. What are your advices for choosing exchange and choosing brokerage companies? What exchanges and brokerage companies do you recommend? For brokerage companies, a beginner can go with discount broker. For sophisticated investors can opt for full service brokers. Usually your bank will have a brokerage firm. For exchanges, it depends...if you are in US, you should send to the US exchanges. IF you wish to send to other exchanges in other countries, you should check with the broker about that. Your strategy of longing company(a) and shorting company(b) is flawed as the prices of company(a) and company(b) can both increase and though you are right , you will lose money due to the shorting strategy. You should not engage in pair trading , which is normally used for arbitrage purposes You should just buy company(a) since you believed its a better company compared to company(b) , its as simple as that They don't have to track each other, it could just be listed on more than one exchange.  The price on one exchange does not have to match or track the price on the other exchange. This is actually quite common, as many companies are listed on two or more exchanges around the world. There are some brokers in the US who would be happy to open an account for non-US residents, allowing you to trade stocks at NYSE and other US Exchanges. Some of them, along with some facts: DriveWealth Has support in Portuguese Website TD Ameritrade Has support in Portuguese Website Interactive Brokers Account opening is not that straightforward Website "A ""stock price"" is nothing but the price at which some shares of that stock were sold on an exchange from someone willing to sell those shares at that price (or more) to someone willing to buy them at that price (or less). Pretty much every question about how stock prices work is answered by the paragraph above, which an astonishingly large number of people don't seem to be aware of. So there is no explicit ""tracking"" mechanism at all. Just people buying and selling, and if the current going price on two exchanges differ, then that is an opportunity for someone to make money by buying on one exchange and selling on the other - until the prices are close enough that the fees and overhead make that activity unprofitable. This is called ""arbitrage"" and a common activity of investment banks or (more recently) hedge funds and specialized trading firms spun off by said banks due to regulation." It might be easiest to think of stock exchanges like brokers.  If you buy a home, and your broker goes bankrupt, you still own your home, but you could not sell it without the aid of another broker.   Same with stocks, you own the stocks you buy, but you would be unable to either purchase new stocks or sell your stock holdings without an exchange. You can use interactive brokers. It allows you to have a single account to trade stocks and currencies from several countries. If you prefer the stock rather than cash, you might find it easier to take the cash, report it, and then buy the same stock from within your own country. "The London Stock Exchange offers a wealth of exchange traded products whose variety matches those offered in the US.  Here is a link to a list of exchange traded products listed on the LSE.  The link will take you to the list of Vanguard offerings.  To view those offered by other managers, click on the letter choices at the top of the page.  For example, to view the  iShares offerings, click on ""I"". In the case of Vanguard, the LSE listed S&P500 ETF is traded under the code VUSA.  Similarly, the Vanguard All World ETF trades under the code VWRL.  You will need to be patient viewing iShares offerings since there are over ten pages of them, and their description is given by the abbreviation ""ISH name"". Almost all of these funds are traded in GBP. Some offer both currency hedged and currency unhedged versions.  Obviously, with the unhedged version you are taking on additional currency risk, so if you wish to avoid currency risk then choose a currency hedged version.  Vanguard does not appear to offer currency hedged products in London while iShares does.  Here is a list of iShares currency hedged products.  As you can see, the S&P500 currency hedged trades under the code IGUS while the unhedged version trades under the code IUSA. The effects of BREXIT on UK markets and currency are a matter of opinion and difficult to quantify currently.  The doom and gloom warnings of some do not appear to have materialised, however the potential for near-term volatility remains so longs as the exit agreement is not formalised.  In the long-term, I personally believe that BREXIT will, on balance, be a positive for the UK, but that is just my opinion." "Trading on specific ECNs is the easy part - you simply specify the order routing in advance.  You are not buying or selling the *exact* same shares.  Shares are fungible - so if I simultaneously buy one share and sell another share, my net share position is zero - even if those trades don't settle until T+3.  PS ""The Nasdaq"" isn't really an exchange in the way that the CME, or other order-driven markets are.  It's really just a venue to bring market makers together.  It's almost like ""the internet,"" as in, when you buy something from Amazon, you're not buying it from ""the internet,"" but it was the internet that made your transaction with Amazon possible." No you can't, as you would have to have a different order for each security. Usually the bigger the order the more the brokerage you would also pay. They are providing you a service and they charge you for it. The service includes giving you a trading platform(website and the infrastructure), doing all the background work for setting up services for you, relaying your orders to the market or as a broker fulfilling your orders, doing settlement when an order is matched, giving you access to the stock market(the costs are quite high to get a license to relay orders to the market and I believe it needs to be renewed every year). There are transaction fees which the stock exchanges charge the brokers to use the stock markets infrastructure and connect to it. And then interfacing with banks for monetary transactions and also doing according to the law in the jurisdiction they are located in. Most of it is an one time cost, but they are a private enterprise out to make profit so they will charge for their services. The $500 minimum is a policy of the ASX. As such any broker that offered a different policy would not be offering direct purchase of exchange traded shares. Note however that this policy applies only to the initial purchase. From the CMC FAQs: The ASX requires a minimum parcel of $500 to be traded if you don’t currently hold that particular security. Once you have $500 worth of an individual security, you can purchase any value of shares you like. You might what to check out Interactive Brokers. If your India stock is NSE listed they might be able to do it since they support trading on that exchange. I would talk to a customer service rep there first. https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=exchanges&p=asia