What happens when a stock gets delisted?
When a delisting happens, the primary process involves, the firm or the entity, trying to buy everyone out so that they can take the firm private by delisting from the stock exchanges. As the firm wants to buy everyone out, the current owners of the equity have the upper hand. They wouldn't want to sell if they believe the firm has a brighter future. So to compensate the existing holders, the buyer needs to compensate the current holders of any future loss, so they pay a premium to buy them out. Hence the prices offered will be more than the current existing price. And in anticipation of a premium the stocks price rises on this speculation. The other scenario is if the current holder(s) decide no to sell their holdings and are small in number, dependent on exchange regulations, and the buyer manages to de-list the stock, the holders might loose out i.e. they have to find another buyer who wants to buy which becomes difficult as the liquidity for the stock is very minimal. if any stock is DE-listed and then we can not trade on it,  In India if the promoters capital is more than 90%, he can get the stock de-listed. There is a process, he has to make an open offer at specified price to minority shareholders. The minority shareholder can refuse to sell. Once the stock is de-listed, it means it cannot be traded on a given exchange. However you can still sell / buy by directly finding a buyer / seller and it's difficult compared to a listed stock.
No. Busts are very infrequent, and if an equity were illiquid enough to be affected, the bust cost would be enormous. For a liquid equity, the amount of busted volume is insignificant except during a flash crash or flash spike.  Then it would be reasonable to redownload. does it still count as a capital gain or loss? Yes. Is it essentially treated like you sold the stock at the price of the buy-out?  Yes. Do you still get a 1099-B from your broker? Yes. I don't know about the liquidation. The capital doesn't evaporate, its source just becomes the corporation itself. The corporation becomes the sole shareholder and acts at the behest of the board. The board then decides both board matters and shareholder matters.  Once I talked that through, I realized no one would do this. If the board is in complete control, why clump the ownership together. The directors would be better served by clearly delineating their ownership interests by purchasing shares directly. As others have posted, the company gains capital in return for its new shares. However, the share price can still fall. The problem is that the share marked is affected by supply and demand like any other marked.  If the company just issues the new shares at marked price, they will have problems finding buyers.  The people who are willing to pay that price has already bought as many shares as they want. The company does this to raise capital, and depends on the shares actually selling for this to work.  So, they issue shares at below marked price to attract buyers and the shares get diluted.  In the end the share will usually end up somewhere between the old marked price and the issue price. The old share owners are probably not too happy about this and will not accept this plan. (At least here in Norway, share issue has to be accepted at a shareholder meeting) So, what is often done instead is to issue buy options for the required number of shares at the below-marked price.  These options are given (for free) to the current share holders proportional to their current holding. If everybody exercises their options they get new cheap shares that compensates for the loss of share value.  If they don't have the capital themselves, they can sell the options and get compensation that way instead. In the case you mentioned, where a private company owners will take debt with the purpose of  buying out other owners, is this done through a share repurchases program (I understand private companies issue them, even though it's rare)? Thank you for the insights. The holders of the shares have to agree to sell them to management in a share repurchase.  Typically, share repurchases are done in the open market, causing market activity to increase the share price marginally.  This is how the company returns the value to shareholders.  The company could also negotiate a price with a mutual fund, or founder, for a large block.     If they get close to the point of purchasing all outstanding shares, this would be exactly the same as the management of the company taking the company private, buying out all existing shareholders.   To prevent a single holdout from keeping say the very last share for one million dollars or the like on the open market, they would generally propose to the board of directors the buyout terms with a price per share, and most corporate charters are written such that the directors' vote binds minority shareholders to buyout or merger decisions.  Michael Dell famously took Dell Computer private in 2013, raising external money to offer a fair price to the board, which accepted it, letting him take it back to private status. As an addition to Chris Rea's excellent answer, these tender offers are sometimes made specifically to cast doubt on the current market price. For instance, a large public company that contracts with a smaller supplier or service company, also public, might make a tender offer below market price. The market will look at this price and the business relationship, and wonder what the larger company knows about the smaller one that they don't. Now, what happens when investors lose confidence in a stock? They sell it, supply goes up, demand goes down, and the price drops. The company making the tender offer can then get its shares either way; directly via the offer, or on the open market. This is, however, usually not successful beyond the very short term, and typically only works because the company making a tender offer is the 800-pound gorilla, which can dictate its own terms with practically anyone else it meets. Such offers are also very closely watched by the SEC; if there's any hint that the larger company is acting in a predatory manner, or that its management is using the power and information of the company to profit themselves, the strategy will backfire as the larger company finds itself the target of SEC and DoJ legal proceedings. "Where can I download all stock symbols of all companies ""currently listed"" and ""delisted"" as of today? That's incredibly similar . You can also do it with a Bloomberg terminal but there's no need to pay to do this because he data changes so slowly." "Market makers, traders, and value investors would be who I'd suspect for buying the stock that is declining. Some companies stocks can come down considerably which could make some speculators buy the stock at the lower price thinking it may bounce back soon. ""Short sellers"" are out to sell borrowed stocks that if the stock is in free fall, unless the person that shorted wants to close the position, they would let it ride. Worthless stocks are a bit of a special case and quite different than the crash of 1929 where various blue chip stocks like those of the Dow Jones Industrials had severe declines. Thus, the companies going down would be like Apple, Coca-Cola and other large companies that people would be shocked to see come down so much yet there are some examples in recent history if one remembers Enron or Worldcom. Stocks getting delisted tend to cause some selling and there are some speculators may buy the stock believing that the shares may be worth something only to lose the money possibly as one could look at the bankrupt cases of airlines and car companies to study some recent cases here. Circuit breakers are worth noting as these are cases when trading may be halted because of a big swing in prices that it is believed stopping the market may cause things to settle down." "This is a great question.  I've participated in a deal like that as an employee, and I also know of friends and family who have been involved during a buyout.  In short:  The updated part of your question is correct: There is no single typical treatment.  What happens to unvested restricted stock units (RSUs), unvested employee stock options, etc. varies from case to case. Furthermore, what exactly will happen in your case ought to have been described in the grant documentation which you (hopefully) received when you were issued restricted stock in the first place. Anyway, here are the two cases I've seen happen before: Immediate vesting of all units.  Immediate vesting is often the case with RSUs or options that are granted to executives or key employees.  The grant documentation usually details the cases that will have immediate vesting.  One of the cases is usually a Change in/of Control (CIC or COC) provision, triggered in a buyout.  Other immediate vesting cases may be when the key employee is terminated without cause, or dies.  The terms vary, and are often negotiated by shrewd key employees. Conversion of the units to a new schedule.  If anything is more ""typical"" of regular employee-level grants, I think this one would be.  Generally, such RSU or option grants will be converted, at the deal price, to a new schedule with identical dates and vesting percentages, but a new number of units and dollar amount or strike price, usually so the end result would have been the same as before the deal. I'm also curious if anybody else has been through a buyout, or knows anybody who has been through a buyout, and how they were treated." Good questions. I can only add that it may be valuable if the company is bought, they may buy the options. Happened to me in previous company. Presumably you mean to ask what happens if State Street files chapter 7 bankruptcy, since not all bankruptcy proceedings end in liquidation.  SPY is a well known ticker, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be an eager bank willing to pay to pick up that ticker and immediately acquire all the assets related to it. The most likely scenario is that another bank would assume control of the ticker and assets, and the shares would continue trading as they always have. A less likely scenario is that no other financial institution wanted to acquire SPY, and the shares would be liquidated and the proceeds would go to the owners of shares of the ETF. Since the underlying assets are in companies that have actual value, the shares shouldn't trade at much of a discount prior to liquidation. Additionally, if there is a black swan event, there will probably be losses on the underlying assets, so it might even be helpful if the SPY fund was tied up in legal proceedings while everyone gets their heads straight in the market. A stock buy back reduces the number of stocks available on the open market.  Since stocks are literally a share in ownership a buy back of the stock then when the company repurchases it has the effect of increasing the percent of ownership of the company of each stock. Zynga has a Market Cap of ~1810M so a 200M buy back will increase the ownership value of each stock by ~12%.  This has had the effect of an immediate stock price bump of around 12% which is to be expected as the value becomes the expected post buyback value. However long term gains will require Zynga to turn around their business.  This bump will only be sustainable if they can.  If their business continues to decline then its stock price will continue to slide.  There are some who would rather see Zynga invest that 200m in getting a new product to market to bring revenues up rather than spending precious capital on a plan to temporarily bump a stock that is headed towards the floor.  If on the other hand the revenue is poised to recover and the company has the excess capitol buying back stock low is a great way to get the most back for your shareholders bucks. Can they repurchase at any price and any time? They can write a buy order for any price at any time in the future, though they have some restrictions from the SEC mostly involving disclosures.  But it is up to the sellers to choose to sell at that price.  If they execute the buy back at a rate comparable to market rate then they are more likely to get takers than if they attempt to buy it back at a significant reduction from market price.  So since today(10-25-2012) the it is selling for ~2.30  A buy order for 2.30 is going to get more action than one at 2.00.  Investors will often look at the companies buy back offer for a company in decline(like Zynga has been) as the true value of the company.  If so then a lowball buyback offer could add downward pressure on the stock price. Here is my perception of the situation, obtained from reading Degiro's Client Agreement. If Degiro shuts down, it will notify you about the fact at least one month in advance, and you will have enough time to order a transfer of your positions to a different broker. If Degiro shuts down unexpectedly, your assets will remain to be held at SPV, a separate legal entity which Degiro uses to hold the financial instruments belonging to the clients. Since SPV does nothing else but holding the assets, it is very unlikely that something bad will happen with it on its own. With some help from Degiro and/or the regulator (AFM) you should be able to transfer your assets from SPV to a different custodian and broker and thus regain control over them. If you have a non-Custody account, you have slightly higher chances of losing your assets, because Degiro can borrow your securities held at SPV. If both the client for whom Degiro borrowed a security and Degiro itself go bankrupt at the same time, the lent security will not be returned to SPV, there will arise a shortage, which will be proportionally distributed among the accounts of the clients holding this particular security. However, then the investor compensation scheme should kick in and help you recover up to 20000 EUR of your losses. "Let's look at basics. Your 340K mortgage amortized over 25 years at 3.5% is going to cost you $1700 in payments - almost exactly your rent. You won't be paying out less. You will in fact be paying out more, because you are now liable for more insurance, and any repairs will have to be paid for by you, not the landlord. So don't do this to save money. Figures from here. Don't forget that it is extremely likely that interest rates will go up in the next few years. 7% is not unlikely. Can you afford it if your payments double? You can get a fixed rate mortgage, but they are going to cost you much more than 3.5% for more than a couple of years. Don't be fooled by the 'pay yourself' argument for getting a mortgage. in the first few years almost all of your payments is interest, not paying down the principal. You are just switching from paying a landlord to paying a bank. There are huge advantages to waiting until you have a good down payment before buying a house. People with a big down payment get better interest rates, and don't need to pay as much CMHC insurance. You will be less at risk if the price of your house drops. Also ask yourself if you are sure you will be in your house for five years - if not, even real estate agents would usually admit you shouldn't buy. The truck payment shouldn't be an issue, as long as you are sure you can service both truck and mortgage payments. Nor is $600 in credit card debt significant in the big scheme. I would probably put any spare cash towards a down payment. It reduces your interest rate (possibly), some expenses with regard to your mortgage, and your risk if you have to sell and your house value has dropped.  You might like to look at the government of Canada website ""Rent or buy"". It's down right now so I can't give you a link. I'll edit it in when it's back up. EDIT:Turns out it's offline for 'updating'. Here's the link."