Where can I get a list of all Stocks that were acquired or went bankrupt
"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."
The short answer is that the people who know aren't saying. [Lisa Pollack](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/author/lspollack/) at FT has made a heroic effort at figuring it out, but working from what is publicly known and making some reasonable assumptions she can't even find $1 billion of losses, much less 9.   All we know for sure is that JPM sold massive amounts of protection on a particular CDS index. Roughly, that means that they sold insurance on a group of 125 companies, and they would lose money if one of those companies went bankrupt or looked like it might go bankrupt, and make money if those companies look less likely to go bankrupt.   However! They were certainly combining that position with other offsetting positions. Since their banking business loses money when companies go bankrupt, it would make sense if they protected themselves with an even more massive position that *made* money when companies went bankrupt.   A common strategy is to bet that the price of 1 thing will go up, and the price of a very similar thing will go down, so you are protected and can make money if both prices go up or if both go down. However, if the 2 things are not as similar as you thought, you can lose money from both bets. That's what seems to have happened to JPM.  Dimon has basically said that JPM screwed up their calculations, and positions that they thought were offsetting were not.    What also seems likely is that other companies figured out that JP Morgan had massive amounts of certain things that they needed to sell, so JPM was forced to sell at bad prices. You never want to play poker against someone who can see your hole cards.  So my speculative theory is that the main point of the trading was to protect JPM if other companies went bankrupt, but they did it with a complicated strategy that included selling protection. They got the calculations wrong, and then they were forced to sell at bad prices to other companies who knew they had to sell. "Cart's answer describes well one aspects of puts: protective puts; which means using puts as insurance against a decline in the price of shares that you own.  That's a popular use of puts.  But I think the wording of your question is angling for another strategy: Writing puts. Consider: Cart's strategy refers to the buyer of a put.  But, on the transaction's other side is a seller of the put – and ultimately somebody created or wrote that put contract in the first place!  That first seller of the put – that is, the seller that isn't just selling one they themselves bought – is the put writer. When you write a put, you are taking on the obligation to buy the other side's stock at the put exercise price if the stock price falls below that exercise price by the expiry date.  For taking on the obligation, you receive a premium, like how an insurance company charges a premium to insure against a loss. Example:  Imagine ABC Co. stock is trading at $25.00.  You write a put contract agreeing to buy 100 shares of ABC at $20.00 per share (the exercise price) by a given expiration date.  Say you receive $2.00/share premium from the put buyer.  You now have the obligation to purchase the shares from the put buyer in the event they are below $20.00 per share when the option expires – or, technically any time before then, if the buyer chooses to exercise the option early. Assuming no early assignment, one of two things will happen at the option expiration date: ABC trades at or above $20.00 per share. In this case, the put option will expire worthless in the hands of the put buyer.  You will have pocketed the $200 and be absolved from your obligation.  This case, where ABC trades above the exercise price, is the maximum profit potential. ABC trades below $20.00 per share.  In this case, the put option will be assigned and you'll need to fork over $2000 to the put buyer in exchange for his 100 ABC shares.  If those shares are worth less than $18.00 in the market, then you've suffered a loss to the extent they are below that price (times 100), because remember – you pocketed $200 premium in the first place.  If the shares are between $18.00 to $20.00, you're still profitable, but not to the full extent of the premium received. You can see that by having written a put it's possible to acquire ABC stock at a price lower than the market price – because you received some premium in the process of writing your put.  If you don't ""succeed"" in acquiring shares on your first write (because the shares didn't get below the exercise price), you can continue to write puts and collect premium until you do get assigned. I have read the book ""Money for Nothing (And Your Stocks for FREE!)"" by Canadian author Derek Foster.  Despite the flashy title, the book essentially describes Derek's strategy for writing puts against dividend-paying value stocks he would love to own.  Derek picks quality companies that pay a dividend, and uses put writing to get in at lower-than-market prices.  Four Pillars reviewed the book and interviewed Derek Foster: Money for Nothing: Book Review and Interview with Derek Foster. Writing puts entails risk.  If the stock price drops to zero then you'll end up paying the put exercise price to acquire worthless shares!  So your down-side can easily be multiples of the premium collected.  Don't do this until and unless you understand exactly how this works.  It's advanced. Note also that your broker isn't likely to permit you to write puts without having sufficient cash or margin in your account to cover the case where you are forced to buy the stock.  You're better off having cash to secure your put buys, otherwise you may be forced into leverage (borrowing) when assigned.  Additional Resources: The Montreal Exchange options guide (PDF) that Cart already linked to is an excellent free resource for learning about options.  Refer to page 39, ""Writing secured put options"", for the strategy above. Other major options exchanges and organizations also provide high-quality free learning material:" Company was founded as a co-op.  If the company has a loss, you get negative patronage. Basically, it is a paper loss until the company can erase it with profits. However, you would have to pay it off you left the company before it was positive. That's my understanding. The company has only been profitable since I have been here.  If the company were to go bankrupt and didn't have enough assets to pay everyone, first it would pay taxes, then (if there was money) it would pay secured lenders, then unsecured lenders, then preferred shareholders, and finally, in the unlikely event that there was any money left, the workers would get paid back the value of their common stock. "Have the stock certificate in with a letter from the previous owner of the company from what I can tell in the letter these stocks were distributed from the owner himself stating ""after evaluation we have determined that your investment in this company is worth 10,000 shares at $1.00 a piece"" as well as I believe these shares were also acquired when the company was going through name changes or their company was bought" "My problem with your argument is that you don't have one.   I'm sorry you cannot grasp the difference between mortgage backed securities and company stock or the difference between a short sale and buying a credit default swap. You keep spouting unrelated ""facts"" as if the mean something.  Did big banks short sale FB?  Who knows?  Did they buy FB CDOs?  No they didn't.  There is no such thing. Did they buy credit default swaps? No." "It's easy to own many of the larger UK stocks. Companies like British Petroleum, Glaxo, and Royal Dutch Shell, list what they call ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) on the U.S. stock exchanges. That is, they will deposit local shares with Bank of NY Mellon, JP Morgan Chase, or Citicorp (the three banks that do this type of business), and the banks will turn around and issue ADRs equivalent to the number of shares on deposit. This is not true with ""small cap"" companies. In those cases, a broker like Schwab may occasionally help you, usually not. But you might have difficulty trading U.S. small cap companies as well." You can check whether the company whose stock you want to buy is present on an european market. For instance this is the case for Apple at Frankfurt. Have you looked at what is in that book value? Are the assets easily liquidated to get that value or could there be trouble getting the fair market value as some assets may not be as easy to sell as you may think. The Motley Fool a few weeks ago noted a book value of $10 per share. I could wonder what is behind that which could be mispriced as some things may have fallen in value that aren't in updated financials yet. Another point from that link: After suffering through the last few months of constant cries from   naysayers about the company’s impending bankruptcy, shareholders of   Penn West Petroleum Ltd. (TSX:PWT)(NYSE:PWE) can finally look toward   the future with a little optimism. Thus, I'd be inclined to double check what is on the company books.