How foreign companies listed in the US find US investors

01A US listing is not a US shareholder base

On 23 October 2026, 638 foreign private issuers with a market value under $500 million had shares listed on Nasdaq, the NYSE or NYSE American. That is 56% of the 1,141 foreign companies on those exchanges. Their median market value was $31 million.

For many of them New York is the only market. The SEC found that in fiscal 2023 about 55% of companies filing annual reports on Form 20-F traded almost entirely in the US, with more than 99% of their trading volume on US markets. Those companies made up 9.2% of the market value of all 20-F filers, so they are mostly the small ones. A company in that position has no home market to fall back on, so its investors have to be found in the US.

The listing gives US investors access. It does not put the company on their screens, in their peer sets or on their calendars. Each of the three groups that buy small US-listed stocks finds companies in a different way, and each one needs different work.

02What we measured

Krypton AI took every company listed on Nasdaq, the NYSE and NYSE American in the SEC's ticker file, read each company's filing history from EDGAR, and counted it as a foreign private issuer when its latest annual report was a Form 20-F or 40-F, or, for a company too new to have filed one, when it registered on a foreign issuer form such as an F-1. The comparison group is US companies: 10-K filers, and new registrants on domestic forms such as an S-1, with a US business address. Blank-check companies and investment funds are left out. Market values are from Nasdaq's stock screener at the close on 23 October 2026. Every company left under $500 million is in the study: 638 foreign and 1,496 US.

We then compared the two groups on what decides whether US investors find a company: who owns it in Form 13F filings, whether analysts start covering it, and how much it trades. Every comparison is between companies of similar size, because foreign listings are smaller on average and size alone changes all three.

03US funds that own your peers

Investment managers with $100 million or more in US-listed stocks report their holdings every quarter on Form 13F. We kept the 3,402 managers with a US address that pick stocks one at a time, leaving out index funds, quantitative funds, wealth platforms, banks, insurers and brokers. We could match 483 of the 638 small foreign listings, and 1,373 of the US companies, to those filings for 30 June 2026.

58% of the matched foreign listings had no US stock picker on their register at all, against 20% of US companies. The gap holds in every size band. Between $50 million and $150 million, half the foreign companies had none, against 12% of US companies.

The funds that could own them are not missing. For each company we took its ten closest US peers by market value in the same industry and counted the US stock pickers that owned at least two of those peers and none of the company. The median foreign listing had 7 such funds. The median US company also had 7. The pool of possible buyers is the same size for both. What differs is how many of those funds have bought.

Those funds are the first list to build. They hold the companies you compare yourself with, so they know the industry, the metrics and the valuation range. What they need from you is a reason to add one more name, in their time zone and in their terms.

04US analysts who cover your peers

Analysts find companies the same way funds do: through the industry they already cover. In the ratings feed Krypton AI keeps, an analyst started coverage on 16% of small foreign listings in the two years to 2 September 2026, against 44% of US companies under $500 million. Between $150 million and $500 million the shares were 33% and 55%. The feed does not see every analyst, so these are floors. They say who started coverage, not who has none.

51 firms started coverage on at least one small foreign listing in the period. Five of the eight most active, shown below, are also among the eight that initiated most often on small US companies in our note on analyst coverage. An analyst who covers three of your peers already knows the comparison and the institutions who read it, so the shortlist is the analysts who publish on your closest peers today, not a list of every bank in your sector.

If a firm underwrote your US offering, its analyst is a likely first initiation: in our coverage study, 24.8% of initiations came from an analyst whose firm had underwritten the company, against 7.4% across all candidate analysts. Otherwise the path is the same as for a US company: meet the analysts who cover your peers before you need them, at the conferences where they take meetings, with results and a story they can compare in their own terms.

05US retail investors

US retail investors trade during US market hours, through US brokerage apps, in dollars. A foreign company that publishes at night New York time, in a release written for its home market, reaches few of them while they are trading.

Trading shows it. Over the 63 trading days to 23 October 2026, the median small foreign listing traded $99,000 of stock a day. The median US company under $500 million traded $512,000. The gap holds at every size, and it is widest between $50 million and $150 million, where foreign listings traded about a quarter of what US companies did.

Liquidity matters beyond retail. A fund cannot build a position in a stock that trades $100,000 a day without moving the price, so thin trading keeps institutions away too. Retail buying adds to daily volume, and daily volume decides how large a position a fund can hold.

06Time zones and earnings-call timing

Most small foreign listings are run from offices many hours from New York. 245 of the 638 are based in mainland China or Hong Kong, 12 or 13 hours ahead. Israel, with 63, is 7 hours ahead for most of the year. Singapore is 12 or 13 hours ahead and Sydney 14 to 16, while Toronto shares New York's clock and Vancouver is 3 hours behind.

The US market is open from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM in New York. US companies usually release results just before the open or just after the close and hold the call the same morning or afternoon, so analysts and investors can read the numbers and ask questions in one sitting. A release that lands at 2:00 AM New York time waits hours for its first US reader.

Work back from New York. A call at 8:00 AM New York time is 8:00 or 9:00 PM in Hong Kong and Singapore, and 3:00 PM in Tel Aviv for most of the year. A call at 5:00 PM New York time is early the next morning in Sydney. Publish the release in English before the call, on the same day as at home, and file it with the SEC on Form 6-K at the same time, so a US reader never learns the numbers second-hand.

076-K and 8-K: what US investors expect

A US company reports on a fixed rhythm: a 10-Q every quarter, a 10-K every year, and an 8-K within four business days of anything material, each 8-K tagged with numbered items, such as 2.02 for results. US investors are used to that rhythm.

A foreign private issuer is not required to report quarterly. It files a 20-F within four months of its year end and furnishes a Form 6-K promptly after it makes material information public at home, files it with another exchange or sends it to its shareholders. Nasdaq and the NYSE also ask for an interim balance sheet and income statement for the first half on Form 6-K. Foreign companies are not quiet: the small ones furnished a median 14 reports on Form 6-K in the 12 months to 22 October 2026, against a median 11 Form 8-K reports for US companies. But a 6-K carries no item numbers. 99.4% of the 10,545 they furnished in that period described themselves only as a 6-K or a report of a foreign issuer, so a reader cannot tell results from a meeting notice without opening each one.

Report quarterly if you can, even where the rules do not require it. US small-cap investors compare companies quarter by quarter, and a company that reports twice a year drops out of the comparison for half of it. Name what each 6-K holds in its exhibit title and first line, and send results through a US newswire in US hours as well as filing them.

08English materials

A US investor reads the English version, so the English version is the one that has to be complete. Publish results, presentations and announcements in English at the same time as the home-language version, not a day later and not as a summary. Use US conventions where it costs nothing: dollars beside the home currency, the US exchange ticker first, and the same metrics the US peers report.

Keep an English investor website with the latest presentation, the last four quarters of results, the filings, a calendar of upcoming events and a named contact who answers in US hours.

09What a company can do

None of this guarantees an investor or an analyst. It does show where the effort pays.

• List the US stock-picking funds that own at least two of your closest US peers and none of your stock, from their latest 13F filings, and ask each for a meeting.
• List the analysts who publish on those peers today, by name, and meet them before your next results.
• Release results in English before the US open or just after the close, file the 6-K the same minute, and hold the call in US hours.
• Report every quarter, with the same metrics your US peers use.
• Spend at least one week a year in the US, at a conference where small-cap investors and analysts take meetings, and follow each meeting with what the fund asked for.
• Know your median daily trading value in dollars and how it compares with your peers. If it is a fraction of theirs, liquidity is the first conversation.

10How Krypton AI helps

Krypton AI does investor relations for public companies under $1 billion listed on US exchanges, including foreign companies whose shares trade in New York. It starts from 13F filings: the US funds that own your closest peers but not you, ranked by fit, and the analysts who cover those peers. It writes the presentations, releases and conference briefings in English, prepares each earnings call, and reports each quarter who owns the stock, who added and who left, with every figure tied to a filing. Krypton AI publishes no ratings or price targets and holds no position in a client's stock.

The first call is 30 minutes. We prepare a first read on your company before we meet, and a person reviews it.