THREAD: COUNTERFEIT STOCKS

There are four major players in the industry: Hedge funds, prime brokers, the DTCC, and the SEC.

Hedge funds and the SEC you know of, but the DTCC and prime brokers are important.

Prime brokers are relatively simple - they’re brokers that can clear their own transactions by way of moving actual shares between their clients.

The big prime brokers are ones you’ve heard of - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, etc. - big, big companies.

These prime brokers in turn collectively own the Depository Trust Clearing Corp - DTCC.

The DTCC is an almost impenetrable, behemoth corporation that clears near a billion shares a day and accounts for a vast majority of the clearing house activity in the US market. This is the corporation that ACTUALLY holds physical shares - all your “shares” are on their books

The DTCC is (this will be important later) nearly impossible to get information out of, and it takes an act of Congress or a subpoena to get them to talk on anything.