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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: net.invest
Subject: Re: Stockbroker selection, discount brokers (taking delivery)
Message-ID: <17187@styx.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Dec-85 01:29:20 EST
Article-I.D.: styx.17187
Posted: Sun Dec  8 01:29:20 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Dec-85 03:58:28 EST
References: <11094@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <7812@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Distribution: net
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore, CA
Lines: 29

C'mon, folks. Think for a minute and contrast the odds of your broker
going belly up (which happens, but not very often) with the number of
things that can happen if you take delivery of your certificates, like:

1. You lose them.
2. They are stolen.
3. They are destroyed by fire, flood, etc.
4. They get lost in the mail being sent to/from a broker.

Never mind the obnoxiousness of having to travel to and from the bank.
I find dealing with banks even less fun than dealing with brokers and
try to limit my personal visits to depositing paychecks and hitting up
the ATM for cash and paying credit card bills.

For those of you who still have the idea in your mind of your brokers
handling share certificates and "keeping track of them", forget it. 
THERE ISN'T ANYTHING TO KEEP TRACK OF. It's all software and spinning
disks, folks. If a Merrill Lynch customer sells 100 shares of XYZ to a
Schwab customer, no paper changes hands. Stock certificates live in a 
repository and change hands only on paper and electronically, until somebody 
wants 'em delivered personally. If your broker holds your stocks in 
street name (that's the trade term for holding the stock for you) and ever 
gives you any jive about "losing track of the certificates", contact your 
lawyer and the SEC, in that order. THEY ARE DEFRAUDING YOU. No one ever 
even SEES the certificates. 

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {akgua,allegra,cbosgd,decwrl,dual,ihnp4,sun}!idi!styx!mcb