IVN.TO's liquidity is available to IVPAF's buyers and sellers. I use Fidelity (I imagine that most brokers are the same) and they route my orders through the Toronto Stock Exchange. Almost all of my buys have been listed on the IVN.TO time and sales as well as IVPAF's time and sales. The rare exemptions to this, I think, are due to IVPAF sellers having enough shares for sale to fill my order.
The usual small number of shares on IVPAF's bid/ask is meaningless. For instance, if I want to buy 20,000 shares right away, I put a limit order in at IVPAF's ask price. It will fill right away if there are that many shares for sale on IVN.TO's ask. Which there usually is. My limit at the ask orders usually filled between one and two cents less than my limit price.
If you can predict where the USD (U.S.$) is headed against the CAD (Canadian$), then it may make sense to buy IVN.TO with CAD. As owners of IVPAF in USD we want the CAD to appreciate against the USD. Parity between the currencies would give us big gains. Parity right now would price IVPAF at IVN.TO's price of $2.44. I'm not a currency expert, but I do know that the CAD is highly leveraged to commodity prices, especially oil. Higher commodity prices, higher CAD. $100 oil and higher metal prices could result in parity. That's what I'm hoping for a few years out.
I had inquired about buying Canadian stocks on Canadian exchanges back awhile ago. I remember that they had to be bought with CAD, which meant that my dollars had to be exchanged for a fee when buying and selling. I remember it didn't seem worth it at the time.
I do know a couple of guys that have opened Canadian brokerage accounts. They deposited USD, paid the exchange rate once and leave the money there to buy and sell Canadian stocks. However, they did this mainly to trade Canadian stocks that don't trade in the states.
