Quick Profit? What am I missing?

[hutcho]

The difference in price between exchanges seems to be too easy an opportunity to make a quick profit.
There's currently a $15 difference between Mt.Gox and other exchanges. What's to stop someone from buying 100 BTC on an exchange like CampBX and selling it right away on Mt.Gox and making a $1500 profit ? Am I missing something?

[CIYAM]

You are missing the fact that withdrawing your USD from Mt. Gox is very difficult (people have reporting waiting for months for withdraws).

So if you are going to try and arb by selling on Gox then you are probably only going to be able to do so once every few months unless you are willing to trust Gox with more and more funds (which you may never see if they go under).

Also - there is reportedly millions of USD owed to Gox users that was *frozen* by the US regulators making it very likely that Mt. Gox *cannot* repay all USD it owes to is users.

[Kluge]

Beyond their inability to push USD, there are also worries they may be insolvent, compounded by government seizures of US financial accounts and a $75M lawsuit with CoinLab. (Oh - Ian gave a too-quick edit!)

[hutcho]

I can't find any news on the current status of USD withdrawals from Mt.Gox. Last I see is no wdraws for 2 weeks from June.  What is the current status? And is that why their BTC is higher, because you can only trade within their exchange?
What advice can be given to any U.S. people that have cash in Mt.Gox account?

[CIYAM]

Their USD value is higher basically because people frustrated with waiting to get USD are buying back BTC in order to cash out from one of the other exchanges (some are even reportedly doing so at a loss because they either need the USD or don't trust keeping Mt. Gox USD).

Basic rule of thumb with investments - "if they look too good to be true then they most likely *are* too good to be true".

[dddbtc]

The difference in price between exchanges seems to be too easy an opportunity to make a quick profit.
There's currently a $15 difference between Mt.Gox and other exchanges. What's to stop someone from buying 100 BTC on an exchange like CampBX and selling it right away on Mt.Gox and making a $1500 profit ? Am I missing something?

There are scripts/bots that do this automatically. Some even cost money.

There are also tools that buy and sell automatically based on the price fluctuations within a given exchange itself.

[Tammy Chan]

The difference in price between exchanges seems to be too easy an opportunity to make a quick profit.
There's currently a $15 difference between Mt.Gox and other exchanges. What's to stop someone from buying 100 BTC on an exchange like CampBX and selling it right away on Mt.Gox and making a $1500 profit ? Am I missing something?

Arbitrage (buy low, sell high) works well if the "transaction cost" is low enough.

In the case you mentioned, the transaction fee (0.001BTC/KB) for you to send your bitcoin to your Mt.Gox deposit address is low.
However, the time you need to withdraw fiat from Mt.Gox is very long and the whole process is very troublesome.
If you take that into consideration, the overall cost (fee + time cost) is just too high.

[fiddelingones]

What advice can be given to any U.S. people that have cash in Mt.Gox account?

Exchange to Bitcoin and withdraw BTC 
You see, higher BTC demand, higher price 

[fattypig]

Can't withdraw on mtgox, no use if you sell it and have USD

[hutcho]

If they don't have immediate cash for U.S. customer withdrawals, is there also delay for those customers' BTC purchases to be completed?

[CIYAM]

If they don't have immediate cash for U.S. customer withdrawals, is there also delay for those customers' BTC purchases to be completed?

You don't make *real* BTC purchases from Mt. Gox with *real* USD you make purchases of Mt. Gox BTC with Mt. Gox USD (like all the exchanges) - so as long as you have sufficient Mt. Gox BTC/USD funds you can trade.

In short:

*real* BTC -> Mt. Gox BTC easy (wait for confirmations)
*real* USD -> Mt. Gox USD easy (but slower than above)

Mt. Gox BTC -> Mt. Gox USD easy (and instant)
Mt. Gox USD -> Mt. Gox BTC easy (and instant)

Mt. Gox BTC -> *real* BTC easy (although sometimes delays)
Mt. Gox USD -> *real* USD hard (can expect to wait months)

[imamanandyou]

If they don't have immediate cash for U.S. customer withdrawals, is there also delay for those customers' BTC purchases to be completed?

Sometimes BTC delays are reported. But it is best way how to get funds out of mtGox

[hutcho]

Well, thank you all for the info. Is Mt.Gox keeping people up to date on this situation in a timely manner? Where?

[CIYAM]

Well, thank you all for the info. Is Mt.Gox keeping people up to date on this situation in a timely manner?

Unfortunately they are not (which makes people suspect them even more).

[torrentheaven]

Well, thank you all for the info. Is Mt.Gox keeping people up to date on this situation in a timely manner? Where?

If you ask about the status of your USD wire withdraw, you might get something like this reply:

I've contacted MTGox support yesterday asking about the status of my bending USD wire withdraw. Here is the response I've just received:

#######################################
Thank you for contacting us regarding your withdrawal request.
Due to a change in our banking system we are currently experiencing a back-log of withdrawals that we need to process.
Our team is working hard to increase transaction speeds, but there is approximately a few-week back-log we need to overcome.
It will take a few weeks to get back to normal, and we thank you for your patience during this time.
Again, we apologize for the delay and we will contact you once your withdrawal has been processed.
#######################################

Will keep you posted!

Check this thread:
MtGox withdrawal delays [Gathering]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179586.0