Key points
- Sivers Semiconductors trades in the US as SIVEF, over the counter. Robinhood doesn't carry it; Fidelity and Schwab do, both charging a flat $50 fee since it's a foreign ordinary share.
- SIVEF isn't an ADR. It's the same ordinary share as Stockholm-listed SIVE, priced in dollars with no conversion ratio.
- SIVE closed at 31.00 kronor in Stockholm on September 18 and SIVEF at $3.19 the same day. At the current exchange rate the two line up within a few percent, unlike SK Hynix's ADR, which trades at a real premium.
- Don't type SIVR by mistake. That ticker belongs to a silver ETF worth more than $1 billion on its own.
Sivers Semiconductors is a Swedish photonics and wireless chipmaker listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under the ticker SIVE. Americans reach it through a second ticker, SIVEF, which trades over the counter in the US. Type SIVEF into Robinhood and nothing comes up. That's not a glitch. Robinhood's own search returns zero matches for "Sivers Semiconductors," and pulling a quote for SIVEF the same way returns a missing-instrument error, confirmed directly on August 6, 2026. What follows is what SIVEF actually is, which brokers do carry it, and the ticker close enough to trip you up.
SIVEF is real. Robinhood just doesn't carry it
Robinhood supports only higher-tier ADRs and larger OTCQX and OTCQB names on the over-the-counter market, and SIVEF falls outside that group along with most small foreign companies that trade this way, a policy choice rather than proof the stock is unavailable or unreal. Public lists it directly, with the same intraday range other data providers show, so the ticker is genuinely live there. Fidelity and Schwab both carry it too, and both charge the same $50 flat fee on top of the standard commission when you do. Fidelity calls it a fee on foreign ordinary shares, triggered because SIVEF isn't Depository Trust Company eligible. Schwab just calls it a foreign transaction fee, and applies it to any foreign ordinary share traded on the US OTC market with no DTC carve-out. Same $50, different label, confirmed directly against each broker's own published fee schedule. Interactive Brokers is worth checking too, since fees and eligibility get set stock by stock. Search SIVEF directly in your broker's app before assuming a specific one covers it, and confirm the fee before you place the order.
SIVEF, SIVE, and the ticker that isn't Sivers at all
Three symbols matter here, and only two of them are Sivers.
SIVEF is the direct route through a normal US account. It's the same ordinary share as the Stockholm listing, not a depositary receipt, so there's no ratio to work out the way SK Hynix's ADR requires dividing by ten. One SIVEF share is one Sivers share, just priced in dollars instead of kronor.
SIVE is the Stockholm listing itself, priced in kronor, and Interactive Brokers is the most direct US route to it. Enable European trading permissions in account settings, fund the account in dollars, and IBKR converts to kronor automatically when an order fills. Search SIVE, not SIVEF, and pick the Stockholm listing, since that's where this stock's real volume sits. Buying SIVE this way gets you the identical share, just on its home exchange with deeper liquidity than the OTC line typically sees.
SIVR is a different stock altogether: the ticker for abrdn Physical Silver Shares ETF, a silver-bullion fund worth more than $1 billion that trades on NYSE Arca. Different company, different business, one letter apart in the ticker, and an easy typo to make searching from memory.
If you'd rather hold the same theme with full exchange liquidity and skip the OTC question entirely, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI), Coherent (COHR) and Lumentum (LITE) are the closest US-listed comparisons in the same co-packaged optics and photonics space, and a full comparison against that group runs in an earlier piece.
The bottom line
SIVEF has traded from under $1 to above $11 over the past year and sat near $3 in mid-September 2026, and that range says something about the stock before you place an order. Ningi Research published a short-seller report in June questioning a large share of Sivers' reported 2025 revenue, and the company hasn't publicly rebutted it in full. A May restatement widened the 2025 net loss and came with a going-concern note from the auditors. In July, insiders and parties connected to board member Todd Thomson sold about $31 million worth of shares in the week a post-IPO lockup expired, while CEO Vickram Vathulya bought in the same window. Two US law firms have opened investigations into potential securities claims, and neither has filed suit as of this writing; the full dilution and lockup numbers are in an earlier piece.
It also moves on sector sympathy with no news of its own. On August 4, SIVE jumped 19% in Stockholm on a Reuters report about a possible US ban on Chinese optical-transceiver imports, a policy that touches a manufacturing partner two steps removed from Sivers, not the company directly, a connection laid out in more detail in an earlier piece.
The weeks after this piece first ran added to the list. On August 27 Sivers reported a second quarter with a negative gross margin, SEK 53.8 million of net sales against SEK 73.4 million of cost of goods sold, and the report never discussed the gap; the Stockholm shares then fell 39% in four sessions, to about 80% below their June high. On September 3 the company announced a $30 million expansion of its Glasgow laser fab toward 100 million lasers a year by late 2027, with no customer order disclosed for that capacity, and the stock rose 15% on the day. The balance sheet is in better shape than the income statement: a July directed share issue raised about SEK 700 million at SEK 57, and lender Bootstrap Europe has converted its loan and exercised its warrants, leaving a $5 million term loan due 2029 as the only debt to it.
None of that makes SIVEF untradeable, but it's why the spreads run wide and the single-day moves get sharp on a stock this thinly traded in the US. Buy it through Public with no reported fee, or through Fidelity or Schwab if the $50 foreign-share charge doesn't bother you. Reach for the identical Stockholm share on Interactive Brokers if you'd rather skip the OTC line entirely. Set a limit order rather than a market order. Confirm you typed SIVEF and not SIVR. And remember the OTC price should track Stockholm's SIVE almost one to one since it's the same share, not a depositary receipt with a premium built in.
For recent news on the laser business, see our report on foundry partner Win's capacity plans.
This is not investment advice. Check the live price before placing any order. Prices and company facts here were last updated September 20, 2026.
