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Arbitrage basics

Arbitrage is taking advantage in price differences to earn a profit. In this video we explore arbitrage opportunities in options markets. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user tuannb1997
    Great Video ! ! ! It's just simply like the basic "Cheap Buy - Expensive Sell" technique that were used by traders back in the antiquity. My question is: do suppliers of Market 1 - the $1 apple Market - realize what's going on with their apples ? An when they realize that people are willing and able to afford higher price of the exactly identical apples somewhere else, regardless of the traders' actions, would the suppliers in Market 1 raise their current apple price also ?
    (3 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user Ethan Edward Eugene Kniseley
      More than likely yes. In the example that Sal uses apples, the person profiting from the arbitrage opportunity may have access to a market that the individual who is selling their product for less does not. So you can think of the individual profiting from the arbitrage opportunity as someone creating additional demand for the original seller, which is why they are still selling it for the cheaper price.

      Although, the additional demand can present the opportunity for the original seller to increase his price, which is why arbitrage opportunities are only present themselves for a short amount of time to most individuals.
      (3 votes)
  • leaf green style avatar for user Jon lim
    So does that mean when the law of one price is violated there are arbitrage opportunities?
    (2 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user bradfisher122180
    Where do I access these markets? Who do you reccomend? TD Ameritrade work best?
    (2 votes)
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  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user the3lusive
    Is this the same as binary trading ?
    (1 vote)
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    • ohnoes default style avatar for user Tejas
      No, this is not binary trading. Binary trading is where an investor bets on whether the stock will be above or below a certain price. Arbitrage is where you are taking advantage of an imbalance in the market, which will give you a risk-free profit.
      (3 votes)
  • leaf green style avatar for user Andy Sun
    hi, wouldn't that be Q-demand going down and Q-supply going up, since more suppliers we have in market B which means competitive, and people are willing to buy apples in other market instead in market A
    (0 votes)
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  • leaf green style avatar for user Liezl-Ann
    Hello, I am in South Africa. Where does one start in applying the arbitrage principle to Eurocurrency loans where you have interest rates in two countries and exchange rates in the two countries?
    Thanks
    (0 votes)
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Video transcript

The word arbitrage sounds very fancy, but it's actually a very simple idea. It's really just taking advantage of differences in price on essentially the same thing to make risk-free profit. So let's just think about a little bit. Let's say in one part of town there's some type of a market. Let's say it's a market for apples. And let's say in that market, apples sell for-- just make up some price. Let's say that apple's in that market, sell for $1 an apple, $1 per apple. And let's say in another part of town, you have another market. Another market's literally a fruit market. And in that other part of town, apples sell for $1.50 an apple. And we're going to assume that these apples are completely identical apples. How could you take advantage in this price difference on these identical things to make a risk-free profit? Well ideally, you would want to sell apples in the more expensive market where you could get $1.50 per apple. And you would want to buy apples in the less expensive market where you can get them for $1 per apple. And that's exactly what you would do. You would go do this market over here, you would buy apples. Let's say you buy 10 apples for $10. And then you would go maybe ride your bicycle a couple of blocks to that other market over there. And you would sell your 10 apples. So this is buy 10 apples for $10. And then you would sell those 10 apples for $15. And so you would make an immediate risk-free profit of $5. You're buying for 10, selling at 5. And you could just keep doing that over and over again. And on every trip as many apples as your bicycle could carry you'll just continue to make money. And so this is what arbitrage is. And just imagine a side effect. If someone did this enough, then what would do is it would increase the supply of apples here. So supply would increase in this market. And on this market, the demand would increase because there's someone who just keeps buying from this market and selling into that market. So what's eventually going to happen when demand increases, the price will go up in this market. And when the supply increases in this market, the price will go down. So in theory, the more you do this, the more that you're going to make these prices come closer to each other. And eventually, you won't be able to make any profit at all. But while there's this discrepancy, you have an opportunity for arbitrage.