How do I sell a small amount of shares?

Hi. I hope someone can help me. I have got shares with a few companies that have been taken over by other companies where my amount of shares have been reduced dramatically and are only worth $10 or $12 total. I have some in anther thats worth $104. I have an account with commsec but you have do a minimum $500 and there is $20 fee so I would end up owing money on some of them I got anemail once from a company that sold small amounts of shares for free but deleted the email so now I dont know what to do. Some of the shares arent in my commsec acct because they are to small and of little value so they in computershares registry...anyone out there got any ideas

moontafella said:

Hi. I hope someone can help me. I have got shares with a few companies that have been taken over by other companies where my amount of shares have been reduced dramatically and are only worth $10 or $12 total. I have some in anther thats worth $104. I have an account with commsec but you have do a minimum $500 and there is $20 fee so I would end up owing money on some of them I got anemail once from a company that sold small amounts of shares for free but deleted the email so now I dont know what to do. Some of the shares arent in my commsec acct because they are to small and of little value so they in computershares registry...anyone out there got any ideas

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The $500 minimum applies only to buying shares, not selling shares. So you can sell them but you will still have to pay the full brokerage charge.

Some companies do run small holding sale facilities every now and again. Just look up the company's ASX announcement, ring up the company and ask, or you can log into the share registry (like Computershare or Link) and see if you can find those forms.

Lastly, you might be able to donate them to a charity.

Alternately, just leave them as is. Apart from getting some uncessarily emails there's little downside in holding $10 worth of shares in a company. If you ever get cryogenically frozen by accident and re-awakened in Year 3000, AND one of your company still exist, your small holding might worth $billions

moontafella said:

Hi. I hope someone can help me ...
... anyone out there got any ideas

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Hi moontafella,
Welcome to ASF.

You haven't said if these shares used to be worth a great deal or no.

If you wish to offset the loss against another Capital Gains Event, you will need to dispose of them.
Likewise, to show them currently as an accumulated loss, you will need to dispose of them.

Try as I might, I cannot word that better?!

burglar said:

Hi moontafella,
Welcome to ASF.

You haven't said if these shares used to be worth a great deal or no.

If you wish to offset the loss against another Capital Gains Event, you will need to dispose of them.
Likewise, to show them currently as an accumulated loss, you will need to dispose of them.

Try as I might, I cannot word that better?!

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And the flipside:

If they did cost you little or next to nothing, and you reckon they could go up, why not buy $500's worth or more and build a decent-size portfolio. You don't have to buy them all at once, and I'd also stick to those that I'd consider holding on their own merit.

I haven't been a commsec client for years, but when I was in a similar position recently, it took one email to Westpac, plus a form faxed to them, to transfer a handful of issuer-sponsored shares and let them join their mates in my Westpac HIN account. I would be surprised if commbank couldn't do the same; but if they can't, it's probably time to look for another broker...

Yet another option is this:
Find someone that holds a "proper" parcel of the shares in question. Then do an off-market transfer of your handful and have them shout you a cappuccino or beer from the proceeds.
Most brokers will charge a token amount for an OMT. Some service-oriented ones may do it for free. It depends on the kind of relationship one has with the account manager. Smaller ones (hat tip to Gin at OpenMarkets ) are usually more accessible than the biggest players...

pixel said:

Yet another option is this:
Find someone that holds a "proper" parcel of the shares in question. Then do an off-market transfer of your handful and have them shout you a cappuccino or beer from the proceeds.
Most brokers will charge a token amount for an OMT. Some service-oriented ones may do it for free. It depends on the kind of relationship one has with the account manager. Smaller ones (hat tip to Gin at OpenMarkets ) are usually more accessible than the biggest players...

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Not these days off the market transfer now cost minimum $50 or $60 as there are some checking requirement on their part ..some new rules from what I understand

If you want to get rid of them in order to claim a loss (to offset some other capital gain) then either sell them via Commsec and or see if it's possible to get rid of them for free as others have said.

But if you're offsetting a large capital loss (the shares used to be valuable but are now pretty much worthless for whatever reason) then the fee for selling via Commsec will be a minor consideration really and I'd just accept that. Assuming you're talking about only a few companies, the actual $ cost to sell them won't be a huge amount.

The other option is just keep them. If it's only worth $20 then there's not much to lose really - worst case you lose $20. But there's always a chance, however small, that they go up in value and end up being worth more. Apart from getting a few emails from the companies, there's no real downside to holding them unless you are specifically wanting to get rid of all your shares for some reason (eg leaving the country permanently, have a terminal illness or something like that).

This post may be relevant:

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28037&p=813908&viewfull=1#post813908