This field indicates whether a company is incorporated outside of the United States (in which case a Y appears) or not (in which case an N appears). All of the foreign companies covered in this program have shares that trade in the U.S. either directly or through American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). It is these U.S.-traded shares that are the basis for all stock-price-related information in Advisor Workstation.
For the Pros
All monetary values that appear in The Workstation are in U.S. dollars. For foreign companies that report in a currency other than the U.S. dollars, income-statement and cash-flow information are converted into U.S. dollars using the average exchange rate during the fiscal period. Balance-sheet data are converted using the exchange rate as of the balance-sheet date.
Also, all percentage-change information for foreign companies—reported in a currency other than the U.S. dollar --is calculated using local-currency figures. This prevents exchange-rate fluctuations from distorting a company's growth rates.
A note about American Depository Receipts (ADRs)
If you see the letters ADR after a company name, this means it is an American Depository Receipt. The majority of the foreign stocks listed in our database are ADRs, which represent shares of foreign companies traded in U.S. dollars on U.S. exchanges. They can be treated just like shares of domestic stock—you can buy or sell them through a broker, for example. However, ADRs aren’t actually shares of stock, they are tradable receipts for actual shares on deposit at a bank. The purpose of the ADR is to make investing abroad both simpler and less costly for the average individual, who has neither the expertise of a foreign-stock mutual fund manager nor the buying power to trade in the volumes necessary to reduce the cost of foreign-stock transactions.