Confirming that stocks are listed under my name
"The answer to your question is ""no"". Unless you specifically ask to receive paper share certificates, then brokers will hold your shares with a custodian company in the broker's own nominee account.  If you are able to receive paper certificates, then the registrar of the company whose shares you own will have a record of your name, however this is exceptionally rare these days.  Using a stockbroker means that your shares will be held in the broker's nominee account. A nominee company is a custodian charged with the safekeeping of investors’ securities. It should be a separate entity from the broker itself. In essence, the nominee is the legal owner of the securities, while you retain actual ownership as the beneficiary. Your broker can move and sell the securities on your behalf – and gets to handle all the lovely paperwork – but the assets still belong to you. They can’t be claimed by the broker’s creditors if things get messy. The main reason for this kind of set-up is cost, and this is why brokers are able to offer relatively low dealing costs to their clients. You can, if you wish, ask your broker for an account that deals with paper share certificates. However, few brokers will offer such an account and it will mean that you incur much higher dealing costs and may mean that you cannot sell you shares without first submitting the paper certificates back to your stock broker.   Note that the stock exchange plays no role in recording ownership.  Nor does your broker's account with the clearing house." Street name is not what you think it is in the question.  The broker is the owner in street name.  There is no external secondary owner information.   I don't know if there is available independent verification, but if the broker is in the US and they go out of business suddenly, you can make a claim to the SIPC.
"Thanks for the response.   I am using WRDS database and we are currently filtering through various variables like operating income, free cash flow etc.  Main issue right now is that the database seems to only go up to 2015...is there a similar database that has 2016 info?  filtering out the ""recent equity issuance or M&amp;A activity exceeding 10% of total assets"" is another story, namely, how can I identify M&amp;A activity? I suppose we can filter it with algorithm stating if company's equity suddenly jumps 10% or more, it get's flagged" Yes, what they said. You don't mention where you are on the totem pole. Are you reporting to the top dog, or are you 3 levels down? Not to be a downer, but until you know your cut, I'd not get too excited either way. 1000 shares/options of a LinkedIn turned to nearly $100K. Nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but not enough to retire, nor bother contacting a lawyer.  The details of the equity should be spelled out clearly, nothing against Lawyers, but it's likely to be wasted money. Nothing. Stockbrokers set up nominee accounts, in which they hold shares on behalf of individual investors. Investors are still the legal owners of the shares but their names do not appear on the company’s share register. Nominee accounts are ring-fenced from brokers’ other activities so they are financially secure. "There is no unique identifier that exists to identify specific shares of a stock. Just like money in the bank, there is no real reason to identify which exact dollar bills belong to me or you, so long as there is a record that I own X bills and I can access them when I want. (Of course, unlike banks, there is still a 1:1 relationship between the amount I should own and the amount they actually hold). If I may reach a bit, the question that I assume you are asking is how are shared actually tracked, transferred, and recorded so that I know for certain that I traded you 20 Microsoft shares yesterday and they are now officially yours, given that it's all digital. While you can technically try and request a physical share certificate, it's very cumbersome to handle and transfer in that form.  Ownership of shares themselves are tracked for brokerage firms (in the case of retail trading, which I assume is the context of this question as we're discussion personal finance). Your broker has a record of how many shares of X, Y, and Z you own, when you bought each share and for how much, and while you are the beneficial owner of record (you get dividends, voting rights, etc.) your brokerage is the one who is ""holding"" the shares. When you buy or sell a stock and you are matched with a counterparty (the process of which is beyond the scope of this question) then a process of settlement comes into play. In the US, settlement takes 3 working days to process, and technically ownership does not transfer until the 3rd day after the trade is made, though things like margin accounts will allow you to effectively act as if you own the shares immediately after a buy/sell order is filled. Settlement in the US is done by a sole source, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC). This is where retail and institutional trade all go to be sorted, checked and confirmed, and ultimately returned to the safekeeping of their new owners' representatives (your brokerage). Interestingly, the DTCC is also the central custodian for shares both physical and virtual, and that is where the shares of stock ultimately reside." This is just a shot in the dark but it could be intermarket data. If the stock is interlisted and traded on another market exchange that day then the Yahoo Finance data feed might have picked up the data from another market. You'd have to ask Yahoo to explain and they'd have to check their data. Yes, I'd say you do. This is similar to reporting a brokerage account. Also, don't forget the requirements for form 8938. The point of that question is to test if the user can connect shares and stock price.  However, that being said yeah, you're right. Probably gives off the impression that it's a bit elementary. I'll look into changing it asap. Tell your broker.  You can usually opt to have certain positions be FIFO and others LIFO.  Definitely possible with Interactive Brokers. Cross-listing shouldn't be an issue, as the sole reason stocks would behave differently on different exchanges would be due to exchange rates (sure, noise and time differences, but weekly data should take care most of that). If you're using MSCI World index figures in USD, you either have to convert stocks denominated in other currencies to USD at their historical fx rates, or just save a lot of time and use data from stocks listed in the US, when available. The procedure entails developing an account in addition to every with the search engines like Google through which local business listing is going to be claimed. This account is dedicated to you personally and used only for the company’s listings. You retain possession of this account, and administration from the accounts could be fully utilized in you at the finish of anything. "Shares do not themselves carry any identity. Official shareholders are kept at the registrar.  In the UK, this may be kept up to date and publicly accessible.  In the US, it is not, but this doesn't matter because most shares are held ""in street name"". For a fully detailed history, one would need access to all exchange records, brokerage records, and any trades transacted off exchange. These records are almost totally unavailable." You can obtain a stocklist if you file a lawsuit as a shareholder against the company demanding that you receive the list. It's called an inspection case. The company then has to go to Cede and/or the Depository Trust Company who then compiles the NOBO COBO list of beneficiary stockholders. SEC.gov gives you a very limited list of people who have had to file 13g or 13d or similar filings. These are large holders. To get the list of ALL stockholders you have to go through Cede. You can contact the french agency for stock regulation and ask them : http://www.amf-france.org/ Sure. No-one promises that all the outstanding stocks are ever for sale, but if you get them all - you get them all, what marketplace you used for that doesn't really matter. It looks like what you're calling a name change was registered as a merger that resulted in an exchange of stock.  If that's the case, then what you've been told is correct.  You've got one long-term sale and one short-term sale. Based a quick read of the Form 8937 that was filed, it looks like there were multiple entities involved in this event, more than one of which existed prior to it. https://www.mylan.com/-/media/mylancom/files/form%208937%20for%20mylan%20n%20v.pdf