Brazil would be, I think, br.advfn.com and it's really been strong there. It's a version of ADVFN that's specific to Brazil, just like there are versions specific to many other countries.
throg.advfn.com is inhouse. The company is at 26 Throgmorton, which, before the LSE moved, was the equivalent of having an address on Wall St. in NYC. They're right across the street (well, more like an alley by US standards) from the old London Stock Exchange building, which has been going through refurbishment for roughly forever.
In fact, since I'm a bit of an etymology buff, I've got a book of word/phrase origins and was quite surprised to find "Throgmorton" listed in it.
Did anyone see the news about the ADRs? Since it's finally out, I'm ungagged.
Using the exchange rate and last price of the UK stock at the time of this writing, a share of AVFCY is worth about $2.64.
There aren't enough marketmakers in it yet, though. I was able to buy some at $2.50 through AG Edwards/Wachovia a couple of weeks ago to test to see if trading was possible. I put in both a buy order and a sell order, good til cancel, and the buy order was filled right away but the sell order is still open.
I can only assume that the shares sold to me were sold short as at the time and likely to this day, I'm the only person/entity who owns any AVFCY. The only way I know of to obtain them is to buy shares on AIM and have Bank of New York convert them to ADRs.
I can't buy them yet through TD Ameritrade either online or over the phone because, according to them, none of the marketmakers they use is handling the stock yet.
And, oddly, we're the only site I can find who shows a bid and ask for it. Not only with a crazy spread, but the ask is higher than the price on my sell order. Ask is $3.25 but my sell order to test trading is at $3.00.
I'd previously been buying directly on AIM through AGE, but the commissions are brutal, so I've been holding off waiting for the ADRs. Now I guess I still have to wait until more marketmakers are on it.
Or, maybe the only advertising MM on it right now (with a bid of $1.01) is so unaware, maybe they'd sell me all I want for about $1.25 and I can get better than a double simply by having my broker convert those shares to cert form.
I'm real unclear how it's supposed to work now that the ADRs are available and can be gotten by (presumably marketmakers) buying AIM shares and having Bank of New York convert them to ADRs for delivery to ADR buyers. To my knowledge, the only AVFCY shares in existence are in my AGE account and aside from my small test order, I'm certainly not planning to sell them anytime soon.
So they're finally available, but not what I'd really call "available" since I can only trade them through my full-service broker. I don't know what comes next. More marketmakers getting involved? Because as far as I know, AVFCY shares (outside of the ones I have) simply don't exist to be bought or sold until they've gone through the ADR conversion process, which means buying them through AIM first.
