Share (finance)
Encyclopedia
A joint stock company divides its capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...

 into units of equal denomination. Each unit is called a share. These units are offered for sale to raise capital. This is termed as issuing shares. A person who buys share/shares of the company is called a shareholder, and by acquiring share or shares in the company becomes one of the owners of the company. Thus, a share is an indivisible unit of capital. It expresses the proprietary relationship between the company and the shareholder. The denominated value of a share is its face value: the total capital of a company is divided into number of shares.

In financial markets
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

, a share is a unit of account
Unit of account
A unit of account is a standard monetary unit of measurement of value/cost of goods, services, or assets. It is one of three well-known functions of money. It lends meaning to profits, losses, liability, or assets....

 for various financial instruments including stock
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...

s (ordinary or preferential), and investments in limited partnership
Limited partnership
A limited partnership is a form of partnership similar to a general partnership, except that in addition to one or more general partners , there are one or more limited partners . It is a partnership in which only one partner is required to be a general partner.The GPs are, in all major respects,...

s, and real estate investment trust
Real estate investment trust
A real estate investment trust or REIT is a tax designation for a corporate entity investing in real estate. The purpose of this designation is to reduce or eliminate corporate tax. In return, REITs are required to distribute 90% of their taxable income into the hands of investors...

s. The common feature of all these is equity participation (limited in the case of preference shares).

Shareholders and dividends

The income received from shares is called a dividend
Dividend
Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business , or it can be distributed to...

, and a person owning his shares is called a shareholder
Shareholder
A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....

.

Valuation

Shares are valued according to various principles in different market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

s, but a basic premise is that a share is worth the price at which a transaction would be likely to occur were the shares to be sold. The liquidity of markets is a major consideration as to whether a share is able to be sold at any given time. An actual sale transaction of shares between buyer and seller is usually considered to provide the best prima-facie market indicator as to the "true value" of shares at that particular time.

Tax treatment

Tax treatment of dividends varies between territories. For instance, in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, dividends are tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

 free in the hands of the shareholder, but the company paying the dividend has to pay dividend distribution tax at 12.5%. There is also the concept of a deemed dividend
Dividend
Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business , or it can be distributed to...

, which is not tax free. Further, Indian tax laws include provisions to stopno
dividend stripping
Dividend stripping
Dividend stripping is the purchase of shares just before a dividend is paid, and the sale of those shares after that payment, i.e. when they go ex-dividend....

.

Share certificates

Investors were given share certificates as evidence of their ownership of shares but certificates are not always issued nowadays. Instead, the ownership may be recorded electronically by a system such as CREST
CREST
CREST is the Central Securities Depository for the U.K., Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man and Jersey equities and UK gilts, named after its securities settlement system, CREST. The project was launched in 1993, following the Taurus fiasco, and the company was founded in 1996. CREST allows...

.
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