brett@ucla-cs.UUCP (12/05/85)
> >shop for best margin rates; take personal deliverly of certificates on > >cash sales, and be very, very careful with orders, credits and debits to > >account. > > > >L. Miller > > Absolutely take delivery. So far this year, there have been 10 broker > failures (according to yesterday's Wall Street Journal). Any of them > can fail, for example, Bache did. Even if they don't fail, they can > and do loose track of certificates. > ...Larry Mazlack I hear you. But I'm not so sure that taking delivery is worth the hassle. Broker failures are protected by SIPC. So the only other problem you mention is loosing track of certificates. How many times has this happened to people in net-land? After the screaming have you actually lost certificates? I'll betcha for the most part the customer screams and it gets cleared up. If you decide to change brokers it is reasonable to take delivery. Get the certificates beforehand and then make the switch. The switch will go much faster. I've had stock which was sitting in my account that I wanted to trade - that I couldnt because it was in the process of being transferred to another broker. I don't think you can trade the stock if it's in the "to be transferred" category. In one circumstance it took 6-8 weeks. (An even faster way is to slowly liquidate positions in the account of the one you are going to close until there are none left). Here is a little story associated with the problem of slow transfers. One day last year I thought my account number at Ovest had been compromised and so I asked them to make me a new account number. Well what they did was transfer all the stocks from the old account to a new account and close the old one out. Then they told me that the information in my account application was 3 years old and they were going to send me out a new application. They requested that I fill it out and return it promptly. I did so, but it got lost in the shuffle. Then I went to trade on my new account and they looked me up in the computer and a red light went off saying they didnt have my signed application. It was a Federal regulation that you have to sign and return the thing with your social security number. In the meantime they had to federal Express out a new application and I returned it as promptly as possible. Nontheless, I couldnt trade for almost 6 business days. My advise to you all: be careful with account numbers and always find out when they change an account number how they are going to do it and what the implications of the new account are. One other piece of advise to add to Larry Miller's message. If your stock declares a split or dividend - make sure you get what's coming to you. Sometimes dividends get forgotten; read Barrons to find out when the dividend should be paid. Make sure your broker credits you properly. -- Brett Fleisch University of California Los Angeles LOCUS Research Group 3804-f Boelter Hall Los Angeles, CA 90024 Phone: (213) 825-2756, (213) 474-5317 brett@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU {...sdcrdcf, ihnp4, trwspp, ucbvax}!ucla-cs!brett -------------------------------------------------------------------------