$250 minimum one time purchase. No fees till sale - XOM basically foots the cost of purchase & servicing. The company even went so far as to make it NYSpeed friendly: Even the most questionable ‘ballers’ here can spare $250.
I have no affiliation with XOM (other then shares I’ve had for a few years), nor do I with Equiserve/ComputerShare (other then they service some options I have)… I only came across this Direct Investment plan while doing some other research.
There are quite a few companies who are offering direct purchasing with super cheap minimums, and there look to be a handful of companies that are open to first time buyers (people who don’t own shares of said company already).
Cliffs: Hold off on your turbo kit/rims/nawz/might taco, and buy a piece of a large market investment for redic cheap initial investment.
p.s. - July 1997: XOM was ~$32/share.
IOW, buy now @ 82 and in 10 years sell @ 210 for example (not guarenteed, and subject to cap gains taxes).
Again, some companies (GM e.g.) require that you already own some common shares, though it looks like there are ~15 companies that don’t (e.g.- Pfizer, BofA, Lowes, Exxon…)
Okay, I don’t have any “inside info” here… just what I read from the site.
Dan: YGPM
I’ll share the same PM i just sent to anononimimimty.
Good afternoon sir!
Whatcha wanna know?
I’m not selling this, just sharing what I think it s good idea
Basically, I read though the PLAN INFO on the site at someone elses request. In doing so, I found it to be a rediculously easy way to get into a bunch of companies.
I mentioned XOM because: that is the company that most would recognize; because it is no fee with a $250 minimum; because it is the one that i read through.
Basically XOM is offering common stock directly to the public investor. There is no price discount or ‘option’, however XOM is going to pay the account setup & transaction fees through Equiserve for You.
As I understood it: You request the plan material through that website, and ‘enroll’ direct with the company. You commit $250 - this will get you $250 worth of common stock (including fractional shares if you don’t request certificates). You can be done right there is you like.
Or, and hopefully you do IMO, you can continue to invest cash in, to purcase more shares. You can invest whenever you like, any amount that you like above $50, and you can setup automatic investments if you like.
There is no vesting period, your shares are yours as soon as you purchase & get confirmation. So, you can sell them whenever you like.
The fees to sell are $15 per order & $0.12 per share (You sell 10 shares = $16.20 in fees).
I can’t even begin to get into all of the different tax implications.
Now, I have sent an email to the broker ComputerShare / Equiserve for plan materials on a few different companies just yesterday. No response as yet. I’ll update you as i get info.
I should mention: the only experience that I have with Equiserve in the first place is because Equiserve used to service a stock option grant that my company gave us few years back. The company STILL services our options, under the ComputerShare Ltd name now (acquisition).
I assume, based on this, that the brokerage is at least somewhat reliable.
