Do you register your shares and why?
Do you register your shares and why?
Curious to hear from people who invest in individual stocks.
Re: Do you register your shares and why?
I think my brokerage prefere it. Having certificated shares has kind of gone away at Schwab. They phased that out in the 90s by charging some outrageous price like $300 per certificate.
Most of my old certificates have been sent into the Direct Registration System so they can be in the account.
One reason not to register the shares is to obscure them. It’s not really hiding them but an irate spouse may have trouble ascertaining their value or existence if you have them rolled up in certificated form in a safe somewhere. That’s how my dad cheated my mom out of 90% of his assets during their divorce. Yep…mom and her lawyer were really dumb and didn’t do a thorough search.
But as I said, this thing has kind of gone away with certificated shares. Registration is the norm around here.
Most of my old certificates have been sent into the Direct Registration System so they can be in the account.
One reason not to register the shares is to obscure them. It’s not really hiding them but an irate spouse may have trouble ascertaining their value or existence if you have them rolled up in certificated form in a safe somewhere. That’s how my dad cheated my mom out of 90% of his assets during their divorce. Yep…mom and her lawyer were really dumb and didn’t do a thorough search.
But as I said, this thing has kind of gone away with certificated shares. Registration is the norm around here.
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Re: Do you register your shares and why?
No. Street name only.
Consider a situation where the company gets bought up, merged, or worse spins off a second company. Maybe it changes its flag or becomes transnational. Repeat the story. Suddenly you're receiving checks for your dividends from two different countries, letters from the tax authorities in one country asking you to check a box, checks denominated in EUR, and blabla.
Even if you don't do a single thing, doing modern finance with checks, papers, and envelopes will eventually turn into a mess because of your counterpart.
Best reason I can think of is to frame a certificate and put it on the wall. If so, just buy one from ebay for five bucks
Consider a situation where the company gets bought up, merged, or worse spins off a second company. Maybe it changes its flag or becomes transnational. Repeat the story. Suddenly you're receiving checks for your dividends from two different countries, letters from the tax authorities in one country asking you to check a box, checks denominated in EUR, and blabla.
Even if you don't do a single thing, doing modern finance with checks, papers, and envelopes will eventually turn into a mess because of your counterpart.
Best reason I can think of is to frame a certificate and put it on the wall. If so, just buy one from ebay for five bucks
Re: Do you register your shares and why?
That was all manageable. It is a hassle. The switchover happened early in my investing experience. The registration service handles most of the details. You just need to send in a certificate or receive one periodically. Dividend checks need to be deposited but they can be put on auto deposit. It was an interesting way to keep money away from prying eyes. I’ve said before in old threads that people can only take what they know exists.
My mother had a lot of paper when she spun out with dementia years ago. This is where it got messy. Lost dividend checks. It happened all at once. Many lost checks. Worse, she registered a significant sum of PG shares at a DRS agent and forgot to complete the transfer to her brokerage account. She had a big roll (many splits) of PG shares that apparently vaporized. I had the dividend checks but the shares were non existent. Turned out she started the registration process and never completed it because she forgot. Her broker forgot too. They were stuck in a mom and pop registration agency on the east coast for years. While tearing her house apart I found an old Post It note on an tattered envelope saying “Send P&G to here” with the Boston address. I put 2+2 together and recovered the shares. Just saying it can get quite messy.
It was like she buried treasure somewhere in her yard and forgot.
My mother had a lot of paper when she spun out with dementia years ago. This is where it got messy. Lost dividend checks. It happened all at once. Many lost checks. Worse, she registered a significant sum of PG shares at a DRS agent and forgot to complete the transfer to her brokerage account. She had a big roll (many splits) of PG shares that apparently vaporized. I had the dividend checks but the shares were non existent. Turned out she started the registration process and never completed it because she forgot. Her broker forgot too. They were stuck in a mom and pop registration agency on the east coast for years. While tearing her house apart I found an old Post It note on an tattered envelope saying “Send P&G to here” with the Boston address. I put 2+2 together and recovered the shares. Just saying it can get quite messy.
It was like she buried treasure somewhere in her yard and forgot.