

There are, of course, benefits to this indirect ownership. Typically, a broker holds an investor’s shares on its books and keeps a record that you own the asset without the broker or the individual ever having to actually hold the physical shares. Soared 8% at its peak Thursday, to close up 5.7%, as “direct registration” chatter took hold on social media, with users on Reddit flooding message boards with screenshots of purported evidence that they had moved their trading accounts to transfer agents that allow them to hold stock in a company directly rather than through the more common ‘street’ ownership.

Which have seen an influx of business from the meme crowd. In recent days, an increasing number of retail investors have swapped their torches, pitchforks and TD Ameritrade accounts for direct registration platforms like Computershare
