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A comment on Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price is too high for Nasdaq computers. Parent comment

Re:Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price is too high for Nasdaq c... by eru on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @04:40AM (#27047578)
Almost no one in the US 'truly' owns any shares.

They are all held by 'Depository Trust Company' in the name of 'Cede and Company'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Trust_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cede_and_Company says

> Cede technically owns substantially all of the publicly issued stock in the United States.[2] Thus, investors do not themselves hold direct property rights in stock, but rather have contractual rights that are part of a chain of contractual rights involving Cede.[3]

Modifying the last link in that chain isn't such a big deal.

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Re:Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price is too high for Nasdaq c... by colonwqbang on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @04:20PM (#27055171)
Interesting, I didn't know that! I'm not a US person. This sort of thing varies a lot between countries, it seems.

I still wonder what might happen if the broker went bust and owed X different people various fractions of a single Berkshire share.

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Re:Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price is too high for Nasdaq c... by dragonwriter on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @10:24PM (#27137751)
> I still wonder what might happen if the broker went bust and owed X different people various fractions of a single Berkshire share.

Legal liabilities ultimately are generally settled in dollars, though if an entity “goes bust” they tend to be written off or resolved at a small fraction of their theoretical worth based on the liquidation value of the remaining assets.

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