Taking Stock

This week, Bibic and John sat down with Anuhya Challagundla from the Stellar Community Fund. Anuhya is an open source veteran of the tech industry, and is now working directly with to develop community incentives. build cohesion and encourage growth. Whether you are unfamiliar with open source technology or already engaged in a project, this conversation will get you excited about what is possible...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives discusses some of the ways that we could see transparency improve not only in the markets but in general advocacy parameters. There are levels to transparency - either of participants to regulators, to participants sharing to all other participants. We'll talk a bit about CAT, about the OCC rules up for comment, and about WhyDRS's future plans to advocate for tran...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives was joined by John Wooten and together they welcomed open commentary from the community as they discussed the broader aims of WhyDRS and how best to actuate them. The intention to register as a non-profit 501c3 was discussed for the first time, and how that would help realize more potential for ownership advocacy to advance itself. Investors and issuers are self i...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and 6days discussed some of the developing narratives in the ownership space. Billionaire attention has started to levy more towards short selling and market fairness, and specifically, Truth Social’s CEO has been bringing attention to the potential market abuse from market makers and encouraging shareholders to move shares to the transfer agent to hold in direct...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives was joined by 6days1week to talk in more detail about the community-gathered questions sent over to Computershare. A few days before the time of recording, the WhyDRS team was asked by Paul Conn to narrow the questions down. Chives and 6days discuss six of the questions that they found most important, and some of the possible answers to expect. In the show notes b...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives was joined by Lawson and 6days to discuss the idea of a record holder and what sort of requirements existed for annual reports such as the 10K. This topic came up because GameStop’s 2023 10K had recently released and the record holder information was missing. We reviewed the language and predicted we’d have to see an amendment within about 40 days – but as luck wo...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives was joined by 6days1week to talk about his efforts to track direct plan purchases made through Computershare. Investors have the option to buy directly through the transfer agent and can even set up recurring automatic buys to continue accumulating shares of companies they support. These purchases are executed in bulk at the market on a predictable schedule, a fra...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives was joined by Hoose to talk about the term meme stocks, GameStop’s credit card provided through Comenity bank, the banking sector at large, JPMorgan Chase’s plurality of customer deposits, and NYC Bancorp’s needing to be rescued by private equity. Many sources to be found at the bottom of the show notes today. - Twitter/X Link: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1MnGnMX...

This week on Taking Stock we welcomed people from the community to take advantage of the open structure of X spaces and join in to discuss whatever they would like. Topics discussed in this episode included FOIA, volume around earnings, Form 4s, and the concept of a Megacorp. The discussion continued on past the 1 hour mark and so we’ve split it in half, so check out the rest in episode 22! - Twit...

This week on Taking Stock we continue the discussion from last week where community members joined and brought up any subject they liked. In this half, crypto and other scarce assets were discussed. John Wooten joined us to talk about his appearance at a recent crypto panel on the subject of investor protections, Chives shared his experience on early crypto lending platforms prior to regulatory ov...

This week in recognition of the Valentine’s Day holiday, Bibic and Chives looked back at the history of the DRS advocacy efforts they have been part of these last two years. From DRSGME’s launch and ad campaigns to WhyDRS and meeting with Chairman Gary Gensler of the SEC it has been an incredible journey – and while we may spend this episode together looking back, every other day is spent looking...

This week on Taking Stock, Bibic and Chives reviewed the history of major financial panics, crashes and bubbles. Across the history of modern financial markets we have witnessed these recurrent events borne from speculation and hubris within the market – but are they all so simple? - Twitter/X Link: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1yNGaZRegBgJj - Join the Community: Join us on Discord - https://mee6....

After last weeks All About Plan discussion, the conversation ended up continuing into our community segment where friend of the show John Wooten called in to expound on the broader issues which centralization of power and responsibility in the market have caused. We’re releasing this segment as a standalone episode because while it was not directly related to the main topic it absolutely was a gre...

This week on Taking Stock, Bibic and Chives were joined by Peruvian Bull, Lawson and 6days1week for an overview of the variety and types of investment plans commonly found in the market today. We pack in the information and were absolutely delighted to have some fellow enthusiasts on the panel. - Twitter/X Link: https://x.com/i/spaces/1YpKkwjLllwKj - Join the Community: Join us on Discord - https:...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives sits down for a full one on one interview with John Wooten. John is a published author, has a series of financial education videos online, and founded BlockTransfer. BlockTransfer is an SEC approved Transfer Agent using a public blockchain called Stellar to track issuer ledgers and investor ownership. Chives and John talk broadly about the various major issues whi...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and Bibic wrap up this historical miniseries by examining how the vision of the DTC came to fruition and how it impacted the markets at large and how it impacted every day working people. Beneficial ownership has been forced onto everyday investors. The SEC says it’s a choice, but when was the last time DRS was offered to you when investing in a company? Demateria...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and Bibic continue looking back in time, but this week it's to The Great Paperwork Crisis of 1968, which led to the rationalization and birth of The Depository Trust (AKA The DTC). We look at why it made sense for the time, but how it is severely outdated today, and the impact that has on markets. We also had a surprise special guest join us. John Wooten of BlockT...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and Bibic take a trip back in time to the panic of 1907. A panic caused by wealthy people over leveraging themselves, leading to the public trying to take their money back from their respective banks. The same wealthy people that caused the panic decided they needed to protect themselves from future potential bank runs, this led to the creation of the Federal Rese...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and Bibic dive into the various methods and fees to DRS transfer from brokers around the world. Using the information gathered for the 140+ broker guides Bibic has worked on over the past couple of years, many differences and similarities were able to be drawn upon. If your broker has not been covered by our resources, please reach out and we will be happy to help...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and Bibic follow up from last week’s SEC bulletin breakdown with a handy diagram that visualises the 3 different forms of digital shareholdings, and the various forms of ownership associated with them. It’s important to learn what distinguishes each form of holdings as well as each form of ownership from each other. For example, being a beneficial owner, and a reg...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and Bibic are back after last weeks break with another spotlight episode on Ownership. There is so much nuance to straighten out in just a single word! We’ll be pulling out the sources so you all can follow along with our logic and conclusions. This conversation needs to be had - and needs to continue being had - in order for everyone to make the holding choice wh...

This week on Taking Stock, we dove into the economic and voting rights which an investor is granted after purchase, and what assumptions investors make about those rights. jackofspades123 joined us for this deep dive, and we had a great conversation! Jack prepared some slides and sources - these slideshows are linked in the show notes. - Itinerary: https://imgur.com/BzfKmKo - Join the Community: J...

This week on Taking Stock, we continued the conversation with Jack where we left off last week - how the separation of voting and economic rights can be realized by actors intentionally using market mechanics, and what downstream effects that can have on retail investors - including the tax implications on regular people from the largest participants in the market. - Itinerary: https://imgur.com/b...

This week on Taking Stock, hosts Lawson, Chives and Bibic were joined by Bill Pulte and Kevin Mallone in order to discuss a variety of pressing community topics. Bill and Kevin are two of the larger figures in our investing advocacy community and they shared their perspectives on dealing with online criticism, with seeking truth, with evaluating the SEC, and on the details of the Plan and Book des...

This week on Taking Stock, Chives and Bibic dove into the recently announced UK Taskforce’s action proposal which seeks to explore feasible routes to full dematerialization of share certificates. Not all solutions are made equal, and the proposal’s favorite solution involves forcing investors to hold through a centralized depository’s nominee rather than holding for themselves and in their own nam...