Hello. I've been doing a lot of research into the chinese market over the past year and have always been interested in eventually investing there. How does one go about purchasing stocks traded on a foreign stock exchange? I've seen that some companies offer American Depository Receipts, but I'm not sure I want to deal with an added middleman of a depository bank.

I'm also confused about the data available on sites like etrade and scottrade and google finance. For example, I was looking at China Railway Group Limited (I think listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange) on google finance, and found out a lot of stock information. When I checked etrade and scottrade, they had very little information available, radically different stock prices, and also had the stock listed under the Pink OTC Markets Inc exchange. Wikipedia and google searches on Pink OTC Markets didnt really explain much. Can someone with foreign stock experience shed some light on this for me?

Thanks in advance.

Help yourself on the NYSE. There are plenty of exotic stocks on the NYSE, Chinese, Asian, Latino etc. Not so many but enough tomake a choice et bet on geography.
These companies listed on the NYSE are often large and safer ones. I'd never buy something on the pink sheet.

Side note, I would avoid china anyway... (read other threads about China)