Paper: 500 Million Shares of Stock Are Missing A Report on the Impact of Allowing Stock Sales to Go Undelivered for Long Periods

Paper
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500 Million Shares of Stock Are Missing: A Report on the Impact of Allowing Stock Sales to Go Undelivered for Long Periods

Robert J. Shapiro

Sonecon, March 2006

It has been well established that every day, millions of shares of stock in U.S. companies that are sold go undelivered. In November 2004, an SEC visiting economist, Dr. Leslie Boni, reported that on any given day, there are some 120 million to 180 million shares of companies listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ and some 300 million to 420 million shares over-the-counter (OTC) or unlisted public companies – a average total of 510 million shares – that have been sold and gone undelivered for at least 3 days. Her conclusions came from official data of the DTCC, the organization that clears and settles all U.S. stock sales and purchases, and holds most of these assets in electronic form.

PDF (19 pages):  500 Million Shares of Stock Are Missing: A Report on the Impact of Allowing Stock Sales to Go Undelivered for Long Periods

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