How to use stocks certificate as a gift to a teenager?
Yes, depending on what you're trying to achieve. If its just a symbolic gift - you can use a service like this. There are several companies providing this service, look them up, but the prices are fairly the same. You'll end up getting a real stock certificate, but it will cost a lot of overhead (around $40 to get the certificate, and then another $40 to deposit it into a brokerage account if you want to sell it on a stock exchange). So although the certificate is real and the person whose name on it is a full-blown shareholder, it doesn't actually have much value (unless you buy a Google or Apple stock, where the price is much much higher than the fees). Take into account that it takes around 2 months for the certificate to be issued and mailed to you, so time accordingly. Otherwise, you can open a custodial brokerage account, and use it to buy stocks for the minor. Both ways are secure and legal, each for its own purpose and with its own fees.
"(Since you used the dollar sign without any qualification, I assume you're in the United States and talking about US dollars.) You have a few options here. I won't make a specific recommendation, but will present some options and hopefully useful information. Here's the short story: To buy individual stocks, you need to go through a broker. These brokers charge a fee for every transaction, usually in the neighborhood of $7. Since you probably won't want to just buy and hold a single stock for 15 years, the fees are probably unreasonable for you. If you want the educational experience of picking stocks and managing a portfolio, I suggest not using real money. Most mutual funds have minimum investments on the order of a few thousand dollars. If you shop around, there are mutual funds that may work for you. In general, look for a fund that: An example of a fund that meets these requirements is SWPPX from Charles Schwabb, which tracks the S&P 500. Buy the product directly from the mutual fund company: if you go through a broker or financial manager they'll try to rip you off. The main advantage of such a mutual fund is that it will probably make your daughter significantly more money over the next 15 years than the safer options. The tradeoff is that you have to be prepared to accept the volatility of the stock market and the possibility that your daughter might lose money. Your daughter can buy savings bonds through the US Treasury's TreasuryDirect website. There are two relevant varieties: You and your daughter seem to be the intended customers of these products: they are available in low denominations and they guarantee a rate for up to 30 years. The Series I bonds are the only product I know of that's guaranteed to keep pace with inflation until redeemed at an unknown time many years in the future. It is probably not a big concern for your daughter in these amounts, but the interest on these bonds is exempt from state taxes in all cases, and is exempt from Federal taxes if you use them for education expenses. The main weakness of these bonds is probably that they're too safe. You can get better returns by taking some risk, and some risk is probably acceptable in your situation. Savings accounts, including so-called ""money market accounts"" from banks are a possibility. They are very convenient, but you might have to shop around for one that: I don't have any particular insight into whether these are likely to outperform or be outperformed by treasury bonds. Remember, however, that the interest rates are not guaranteed over the long run, and that money lost to inflation is significant over 15 years. Certificates of deposit are what a bank wants you to do in your situation: you hand your money to the bank, and they guarantee a rate for some number of months or years. You pay a penalty if you want the money sooner. The longest terms I've typically seen are 5 years, but there may be longer terms available if you shop around. You can probably get better rates on CDs than you can through a savings account. The rates are not guaranteed in the long run, since the terms won't last 15 years and you'll have to get new CDs as your old ones mature. Again, I don't have any particular insight on whether these are likely to keep up with inflation or how performance will compare to treasury bonds. Watch out for the same things that affect savings accounts, in particular fees and reduced rates for balances of your size." "The text of the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act states (Section 14, paragraph a): A custodian may deliver or pay to the minor or expend for the minor's benefit   so much of the custodial property as the custodian considers advisable for the use and benefit of   the minor, without court order and without regard to (i) the duty or ability of the custodian   personally or of any other person to support the minor, or (ii) any other income or property of the   minor which may be applicable or available for that purpose. Unfortunately, it is pretty hard to make the case that giving the money to her siblings is for the ""use and benefit"" of your daughter. However, when your daughter reaches the age of maturity, any money left in the UTMA account becomes hers.  She, at that time, could give money to her siblings, if she chooses.  Perhaps you and your father could talk to her about your father's wishes for this money, and that would show her that she should do so at that time. If you don't follow these rules, then your daughter or your father could sue you at any point in the future." I have several as well, (acquired the same way as you) and I am happy with the idea.  They are very stable and that is the reason they pay so little.  I don't think you can get a low risk and medium (or high) return.  The interest does reset every six months so you do get a bit of the market, should the fed set interest rates higher, you bonds will eventually reflect that. Bonds and Certificates of Deposit are just one element of your investment portfolio.  Put the money you can't lose into bonds, the money you can into higher risk stocks. Bonds are great from our grandparent's perspective because they are NOT going to lose value. (My grandparents were depression era folks who wanted that stability)  They are trivial to give as gifts.  Most other investment forms require a heavy bit more of legal work I would think. Not really practical... The real problem is getting the money into a form where you *can* invest it in something.  It's not like E\*Trade will let you FedEx them a briefcase of sequentially numbered hundreds and just credit your account, no questions asked.  That **is** the hard part. sell drugs? (joking)  In all seriousness though, your options to legally invest this money are limited, which leaves you to extra-legal options..... which many young people engage, different kind of candy I guess.   Ok so you cannot invest into stocks, to day trade. Because you're not an adult.  You can put the money in a bank, but the interest rate on that amount of money is in the realm of ~0.1%.  You can use the money to seed another legal business venture, say another kind of better candy.    My advice is to get a parental unit to put the cash into a mutual fund, in your name... then hand that over to you when you turn 18. For point two.. The norm for buying stock is to just register online with a major broker: Fidelity, Schwab,TD Ameritrade...etc, send them money to fund your purchase, make the stock purchase in your account, and then have a little faith. You could probably get them to physically transfer the stock certificates from them to you, but it is not the norm at all. I would plan on a fee being involved also. The 10$ is for one trade... regardless of if you buy one share or many. So you wouldn't buy 1 share of a five dollar stock as your cost would be absurd. You might buy a hundred shares. It's just money in an account somewhere with no tax shelter or string attached, to help maturing children (18-22ish) get a kick start in life whether they go to college or not.  Basically, the money can be used for anything (for you or them).  Or you can put it in a UGMA-type account where it's technically the child's funds and not yours (but check how college loans are calculated before dumping a bunch of money in those, I believe they are looked at differently, maybe as the first source of funds that gets tapped and could impact loan qualification). "I agree with the answer by @Michael that this number doesn't exist.  It's hard to see what use it would have and it would be difficult to track. I'm writing a separate answer because I also disagree with the premise of your question:  Individual shares of stock have never to my knowledge had such a number.  Your comment about numbers on stock certificates identifies the certificate document, which will generally represent multiple shares of stock.  That number no more identifies a single share of stock than the serial number on a $10 bill identifies any one of the ten dollars it represents.  Even at the ""collective"" unit of $10, when the bill is eventually replaced with a new one, the new bill has a new number.  No continuity." It doesn't matter which exchange a share was purchased through (or if it was even purchased on an exchange at all--physical share certificates can be bought and sold outside of any exchange). A share is a share, and any share available for purchase in New York is available to be purchased in London. Buying all of a company's stock is not something that can generally be done through the stock market. The practical way to accomplish buying a company out is to purchase a controlling interest, or enough shares to have enough votes to bind the board to a specific course of action. Then vote to sell all outstanding shares to another company at a particular fixed price per share. Market capitalization is an inaccurate measure of the size of a company in the first place, but if you want to quantify it, you can take the number of outstanding shares (anywhere and everywhere) and multiply them by the price on any of the exchanges that sell it. That will give you the market capitalization in the currency that is used by whatever exchange you chose. "A little terminology: Grant: you get a ""gift"" with strings attached. ""Grant"" refers to the plan (legal contract) under which you get the stock options. Vesting: these are the strings attached to the grant. As long as you're employed by the company, your options will vest every quarter, proportionally. You'll become an owner of 4687 or 4688 options every quarter. Each such vest event means you'd be getting an opportunity to buy the corresponding amount of stocks at the strike price (and not the current market price which may be higher). Buying is called exercising. Exercising a nonqualified option is a taxable event, and you'll be taxed on the value of the ""gift"" you got. The value is determined by the difference between the strike price (the price at which you have the option to buy the stock) and the actual fair market value of the stock at the time of vest (based on valuations). Options that are vested are yours (depending on the grant contract, read it carefully, leaving the company may lead to forfeiture). Options that are not vested will disappear once you leave the company. Exercised options become stocks, and are yours. Qualified vs Nonqualifed - refers to the tax treatment. Nonqualified options don't have any special treatment, qualified do. 3.02M stocks issued refers to the value of the options. Consider the total valuation of the company being $302M. With $302M value and 3.02M stocks issued, each stock is worth ~$100. Now, in a year, a new investor comes in, and another 3.02M stocks are issued (if, for example, the new investor wants a 50% stake). In this case, there will be 6.04M stocks issued, for 302M value - each stock is worth $50 now. That is called dilution. Your grant is in nominal options, so in case of dilution, the value of your options will go down. Additional points: If the company is not yet public, selling the stocks may be difficult, and you may own pieces of paper that no-one else wants to buy. You will still pay taxes based on the valuations and you may end up paying for these pieces of paper out of your own pocket. In California, it is illegal to not pay salary to regular employees. Unless you're a senior executive of the company (which I doubt), you should be paid at least $9/hour per the CA minimum wages law." "Put it in a Vanguard fund with 80% VTI and 20% VXUS. That's what you'll let set for 10-15 years. For somebody that is totally new to investing, use ""play money"" in the stock market. It's easy for young people to get dreams of glory and blow it all on some stock tip they've seen on Twitter." "Yes, this is possible with some companies. When you buy shares of stock through a stock broker, the shares are kept in ""street name.""  That means that the shares are registered to the broker, not to you.  That makes it easy to sell the stock later.  The stock broker keeps track of who actually owns which shares.  The system works well, and there are legal protections in place to protect the investors' assets. You can request that your broker change the stock to your name and request a certificate from the company.  However, companies are no longer required to do this, and some won't.  Your broker will charge you a fee for this service. Alternatively, if you really only want one share for decoration, there are companies that specialize in selling shares of stock with certificates.  Two of them are giveashare.com and uniquestockgift.com, which offer one real share of stock with a stock certificate in certain popular companies.  (Note: I have no experience with either one.)  Some companies no longer issue new stock certificates; for those, these services sell you a replica stock certificate along with a real share of electronic stock.  (This is now the case for Disney and Apple.) With your stock certificate, you are an actual official stockholder, entitled to dividends and a vote at the shareholder meeting. If this is strictly an investment for you, consider the advantages of street name shares: As to your question on buying stock directly from a company and bypassing a broker altogether, see Can I buy stocks directly from a public company?" "Yes, you can do that, but you have to have the stocks issued in your name (stocks that you're holding through your broker are issued in ""street name"" to your broker). If you have a physical stock certificate issued in your name - you just endorse it like you would endorse a check and transfer the ownership. If the stocks don't physically exist - you let the stock registrar know that the ownership has been transferred to someone else. As to the price - the company doesn't care much about the price of private sales, but the taxing agency will. In the US, for example, you report such a transaction as either a gift (IRS form 709), if the transaction was at a price significantly lower than the FMV (or significantly higher, on the other end), or a sale (IRS form 1040, schedule D) if the transaction was at FMV." Parents are eminently capable of gifting to their children.  If it's a gift call it a gift. If it's not a gift, it's either a loan or a landmine for some future interpersonal familial interaction (parent-child or sibling-sibling).  I an concerned by some phrasing in the OP that it is partially down this path here.  If it's a loan, it should have the full ceremony of a loan: written terms and a payment plan (which could fairly be a 0% interest, single balloon payment in 10 years or conditional on sale of a house or such; it's still not a gift). Now a days, your stocks can be seen virtually through a brokerage account. Back in the days, a stock certificate was the only way to authenticate stock ownership. You can still request them though from the corporation you have shares in or your brokerage. It will have your name, corporation name and number of shares you have. You have to buy shares of a stock either through a brokerage or the corporation itself. Most stock brokerages are legit and are FDIC or SIPC insured. But your risks are your own loses. The $10 you are referring to is the trade commission fee the brokerage charges. When you place an order to buy or sell a stock the brokerage will charge you $10. So for example if you bought 1 share of a $20 stock. The total transaction cost will be $30. Depending on the state you live in, you can basically starting trading stocks at either 18 or 21. You can donate/gift your shares to virtually anyone. When you sell a stock and experience a profit, you will be charged a capital gains tax. If you buy a stock and sell it for a gain within 1 year, you will taxed up to 35% or your tax bracket but if you hold it for more than a year, you will taxed only 15% or your tax bracket.