[NvrNoNowX]

Today is Martin Luther King's Birthday a National Holiday, so my brokerage is closed. I did go online to my account and left them the following message:

As long as they hold it in street name, they can 'lend' my stocks to short sellers who suppress the value of these stocks. Putting it in Direct Registration deprives them of the ability to do anything with my shares, other than buy or sell them upon my instructions.

I'll update this story as it progresses. My broker advertises with the slogan 'Talk to Chuck'. We shall see how much good it does to do that.


Hatha

I thought that you could leave sell orders @ obscene levels that would prevent them from shorting with your shares.

[InvertPrete]

I thought that you could leave sell orders @ obscene levels that would prevent them from shorting with your shares.

I don't think that helps. If they short sell from their customer portfolio's, they probably do it up to 90% or so of the entire customers portfolio, no matter whether they have sell orders or not on them. Fractional reserve shorting, if you wish...

[ReneCM]

This is an update on my progress in getting direct registration for my PM Mining Company Stocks.

I own shares in a dozen different PM mining companies. Today I got a call from my broker (Chuck-whom I emailed my request to yesterday) who sounded more than willing to get me either digital or paper certificates for shares in these companies. He had to look up the specifics with the transfer agents of each of these companies. It took him a few minutes (less than 10), and came back and told me that he could get me digital certificates for all but one of these companies, and for that one, he could get paper certificates. However, five of the companies would impose a charge of $500 to issue digital certificates for their shares. So, it would cost me $2500 to make this change in how the shares are held. I asked him who wants the $500 per company--whether it was Chuck or the issuing companies. He said it was the companies themselves. One other company had a fee of $50 for a digital certificate, and the one company that didn't have digital certificates had no charge for paper certificates.

I told him that I had the option of selling all my shares and closing out my Chuck account entirely, but I was not prepared to pay 5 companies $500 each to issue me either paper of digital stock certificates. Something about the $500 fee sounds fishy to me. I told him I needed to do some more research, and to put my request on hold for the time being, but I would definitely be doing something soon.

I made it very clear to them that the reason for my request was not to deal with risk in the stocks themselves, but to deal with the risks of doing business with a broker in today's fast and loose financial regulation climate. He pointed out to me that there is very little risk in doing business with Chuck. My stocks are safe with Chuck. If I thought that, I wouldn't be asking them for Direct Registration of my stocks.

This is where it stands now between me and Chuck. I don't really want to sell my PM Mining stocks because they will go up at a faster rate than the price of the underlying metal--probably at a rate 5 times or so greater. If the underlying PM goes up 100%, these stocks will go up 500%. They are incredibly cheap now, and I believe the only good investment if it wasn't for 'systemic risk'--i. e. the risk of doing business with institutions whose guarantees could be worthless. I'm going to do a complete analysis on why I should own stocks, and whether it is safer to just hold the physical metal. The issue is whether I want a 'return ON my capital, or whether I want a return OF my capital.' I don't want to be caught in a situation like Gerald Celente found himself in.

Hatha

[yovbQVpD]

This is an update on my progress in getting direct registration for my PM Mining Company Stocks.

I own shares in a dozen different PM mining companies. Today I got a call from my broker (Chuck-whom I emailed my request to yesterday) who sounded more than willing to get me either digital or paper certificates for shares in these companies. He had to look up the specifics with the transfer agents of each of these companies. It took him a few minutes (less than 10), and came back and told me that he could get me digital certificates for all but one of these companies, and for that one, he could get paper certificates. However, five of the companies would impose a charge of $500 to issue digital certificates for their shares. So, it would cost me $2500 to make this change in how the shares are held. I asked him who wants the $500 per company--whether it was Chuck or the issuing companies. He said it was the companies themselves. One other company had a fee of $50 for a digital certificate, and the one company that didn't have digital certificates had no charge for paper certificates.

I told him that I had the option of selling all my shares and closing out my Chuck account entirely, but I was not prepared to pay 5 companies $500 each to issue me either paper of digital stock certificates. Something about the $500 fee sounds fishy to me. I told him I needed to do some more research, and to put my request on hold for the time being, but I would definitely be doing something soon.

I made it very clear to them that the reason for my request was not to deal with risk in the stocks themselves, but to deal with the risks of doing business with a broker in today's fast and loose financial regulation climate. He pointed out to me that there is very little risk in doing business with Chuck. My stocks are safe with Chuck. If I thought that, I wouldn't be asking them for Direct Registration of my stocks.

This is where it stands now between me and Chuck. I don't really want to sell my PM Mining stocks because they will go up at a faster rate than the price of the underlying metal--probably at a rate 5 times or so greater. If the underlying PM goes up 100%, these stocks will go up 500%. They are incredibly cheap now, and I believe the only good investment if it wasn't for 'systemic risk'--i. e. the risk of doing business with institutions whose guarantees could be worthless. I'm going to do a complete analysis on why I should own stocks, and whether it is safer to just hold the physical metal. The issue is whether I want a 'return ON my capital, or whether I want a return OF my capital.' I don't want to be caught in a situation like Gerald Celente found himself in.

Hatha

Schwab rehypothecates your stock if and only if (per the documentation) you hold the stock/et al on margin. I've read into this specifically with Schwab.

Non-margin accounts are not allowed to be rehypothecated per their documentation.

That's not to say some financial chicanery couldn't cause Chuck to go BK, they are all suspect at this point IMO, but that specific threat is not one I think you need to worry about.

As mentioned above, if you have an open sell order on your shares they are also, by law, not allowed to loan them out as a part of the short selling scheme.

Shares held with no sell limit/option are allowed to be loaned out for short selling schemes.

[ReneCM]

The broker told me I could remove the Margin feature of my account if I was worried about them lending my stocks to short sellers. I may be overreacting to the possibility of broker induced poverty--but I'm acutely sensitive to the fact that I only own a promise that I will be able to redeem my shares at their market value. Promises are only as good as the people who make them, and those people are losing credibility daily. I'm coming rapidly to the conclusion that the only safe investment is one with no counterparty risk--that is, physical PMs. Paper is riskier now than it ever has been. Ponce's solution is the best one.


Hatha