Q: My wife and I are conservative investors and like to spread our investments out, so as not to be committed to a specific form of investment. Regardless, we would like to give our children a small number of shares in a company [as yet undetermined] to mark their 10th wedding anniversary, as a surprise. We are finding that formal stock certificates are now a thing of the past, that transfer fees make a small stock purchase unwieldy and if we were to put the stock into their name, they would have to have their own brokerage account. Do you have any suggestions, before we trash this idea and move into a more conventional gift?
A: Great idea, and I’m sure they’d be thrilled with your gift of shares of stock, but as you pointed out, company stock certificates are mostly a thing of the past, and therefore yes, they would have to have a brokerage account within which they could then hold the shares. And then there’s the potential that whichever company you choose might or might not be the one …
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