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Finance: What is Common Stock? 379 Views
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What is common stock? Ownership. Common shareholders own a pro rata slice of the pie. They elect the board of directors by vote. Some companies have super-voting stock, which gets multiple votes per share, so that whiny founders can continue to control company boards.
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- Terms and Concepts / Accounting
- Terms and Concepts / Banking
- Terms and Concepts / Board of Directors
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Transcript
- 00:03
Finance a la shmoop what is common stock well, common stock
- 00:08
simply put is ownership common stock ownership is a foundation of what [Businesssmen and women in a meeting fighting for control]
- 00:12
comprises control in a corporation it's the common stock that elects the board
- 00:17
of directors who then hires the CEO who then you know hires everyone else so [The organizational chart of a corporation]
- 00:22
yeah when someone owns a share they own a teeny tiny piece of a company the more
Full Transcript
- 00:26
shares they own well the more of a voice they have in the management of that [Company building crumbles to the floor]
- 00:30
company so someone who has 51% of the shares in a company will actually have a
- 00:34
lot to say in the election of a Board of Directors for example where someone with [Member of the board with 51% shouting orders at other members]
- 00:38
the small percentage of shares still has a voice but it's a small squeaky one in
- 00:44
a bankruptcy situation common stock sits at the very bottom of the stack of
- 00:48
priorities in being paid back a company that's going bankrupt will start by [Examples of priority stack with IRS obligations first]
- 00:52
paying any IRS obligations, yeah the IRS always wins then they'll pay
- 00:56
employees their salaries and they'll pay any vendors who are owed money then
- 00:59
they'll pay off bank loans and they'll pay back preferred stock and finally at
- 01:03
the very bottom there if there are a few nickels and dimes left over they'll pay [Man emptying nickels and dimes from jean pocket]
- 01:07
common stockholders back but shares you hear quoted from Apple and Amazon and
- 01:11
bathmats are us are all just common stock being traded on NASDAQ or the New [Apple, Amazon and Bathmats R Us stock prices displayed on NASDAQ screens]
- 01:16
York Stock Exchange or other places which are owned by millions and millions
- 01:20
of common and uncommon people [A strange person wearing shoes for gloves in a busy office]
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