DEFINITION of ‘Cage’

“Cage” is a slang term utilized to describe the department of a brokerage company that gets and disperses physical securities. To make sure that security ownership standards are preserved, brokerages keep cages within their workplaces to ensure that physical problems are secured. Stock and bond certificates are seen as a stored worth of money; if certificates are taken or lost, individuals can stand to gain from the sale or redemption of these certificates.

BREAKING DOWN ‘Cage’

Financiers owning stocks usually do not hold physical stock certificates. The majority of stocks are kept in the street name of the broker rather than each specific financier. When a financier purchases stocks, they remain signed up in the provider’s books as belonging to the brokerage company. The brokerage firm’s records list the financier as the real owner. The stock is held in book-entry kind, or electronic record.

History of Stock Certificates

The monetary industry has been lowering the number of physical certificates for many decades. Prior to innovation, Wall Street utilized messengers for transporting physical stock certificates to and from the Financial District in Manhattan. By the late 1960s, the high volume of stock certificates and paperwork overwhelmed brokerage companies’ cages. Trades were not completed in a timely manner, forcing many companies to close. During the Documentation Crisis, as the event was called, thieves took over $400 million in securities from 1969 to 1970. The losses motivated the industry to utilize technology-driven options such as street-name registration for much safer, much easier trading.

Advantages of Street Call Registration

By tracking stock ownership electronically rather than through physical stock certificates, stock shares trade faster. Investors retain all rights and benefits as investors without the problem of keeping a physical stock certificate safe from loss or theft.

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