What is the safest free place to keep my stock?

My grandpa gave me some stock before he died, and I want to keep it safe from fire, theives, etc. I don't plan on trading or selling anytime soon. I just need a safe place to keep it, and I have no idea where to look.

Open a trading account with Charles Schwab or some other well-known broker, and give them the certificates. Pretty as they are to look at, most people don't hold certificates any more - it's much better to have your portfolio held by a broker for exactly the reasons you state.

If you really want to keep the paper, open a safety deposit account at your bank and put them in there.

Wow. An actual stock certificate? It must be really old. Brokers usually keep everything electonic now.

First find out if it is still worth anything.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/101802.asp

As for where to keep it, I know bank safe deposit boxes are pretty pricey. A good home fire-resistant and water-resistant safe are expensive. Both solutions could be more expensive than the stocks themselves.

The best solution probably is see if the company has a "DRIP" dividend reinvestment program. Where the company holds the "real" registered certificates and so even if your certificates go up in flames there are still second party records.

Good luck

The guy that suggested a Schwab account is pretty much on the money. If he gave you the physical shares you have to make sure ownership is transferred to your name as well.

safe deposit box for sure

A safe deposit box,.

Go to your bank and rent a safe deposit box.

It is not such a disaster if the certificates get lost or destroyed.You can get a replacement from the company for $50 or so.

Keep them at home and look at them now and again. It will cheer you up.

Depending on the value of the stock . If the value of the stock certificate is $2500 or above. You should have no dificulty to find an online discount brokerage firm to hold your stock positions without incurring any fee.

I suggest you make a call to the following brokerage firms to ask about their minimum asset requirement to open and maintain a brokerage account for free:

1.Schwab
2.TD Ameritrade
3.E trade
4.Scott Trade
5.Fidelity

All brokerage firms above should have up to 500K insurance via SIPC. So, in case they experience financial hardship in the future, your account will be covered by that amount. If your stock value is more than 500K, you can use more than 1 borkerage firm to hold your stock.

Once you determine which firm you are going to use, you just need to bring your stock certificate to a branch location (call them to find out) to open a new account and deposit your stock into that account. Everything can be done in one trip within 15 minutes. I do not recommend you to send the stock certificate as postal service or the firms' internal dleivery system could be unreliable. Loss of mails, checks, forms, securitycertificates within brokerage firms during internal transmission are not uncommon.

After the stock certificate deposited to the account, it will then be held in street name. YOU DO NOT NEED TO TELL THEM TO PUT IT IN YOUR NAME. You can only have the stock certificate in your name if you possess the physical certificate. By having the stock in street name, you will be able to sell it anytime when you are ready to. If you do not plan to sell it anytime soon, you can hold it in the account as long as you what.

Usually discount brokergae firm has a minimum maintainance requirement for their accounts in order for them to waive most or all of the service fees (except trading commission). Such requirment had gone up to over $10000 a few years ago in some of those firms. But it had been dramatically come down lately in most of the firms.

So, give them a call and find out before you take any action.
This is the only best way to hold the stock safely and keep it from all sort of unwanted situations you mentioned above.

Safe box in banks could be unsafe...Don't laugh... check the past newspaper for safebox burglary news... we had a couple incidences happened in my area in the past 2 -3 years... And remember, you should eliminate such potential loss when you can.

Hope this will help!

Cheers

Sal

You don't.
Go to Charles Schwab, and open an account. They get the stock (so you don't get to keep the certificates). They hold it in "street name" for you.

why dont u do online options trading... optionlistings.org

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