Stock
certificates
still exist, just as cash does. If you
want certificates for newly purchased stocks, some companies will
provide them, though there may be a charge. You may have some
certificates stored in a safe deposit box or you may have turned
them over to your broker. The certificates you entrust to your
broker and those certificates that banks hold when they serve
as corporate transfer agents are stored in secure locations.
For example, more than 5.5 million certificates,
worth more than $20 trillion, are stored in the DTC vaults. Those
certificates represent 83% of all outstanding NYSE-listed shares
and 72% of outstanding NASDAQ Stock Market shares.
On the books
Most brokerage firms prefer to hold your stocks in street name.
And some stock-issuing companies will electronically register
your ownership directly on their books or the books of their transfer
agent and hold the security for you in book entry form. Both street-name
registration and DRS allow your buy and sell orders to be handled
more efficiently than if you hold paper certificates. And there's
no risk of losing or misplacing them.
Out of sight
Surely — and not so slowly — stock
certificates are disappearing. Some are immobilized,
which means they're taken out of circulation
and stored. Others are dematerialized, which means
they never actually exist in physical form. In both
cases ownership is recorded and settlement occurs
electronically.
