Sphere 3D Corp (ANY)

[Orion Nebula]

This Smith on Stocks article makes my skin crawl. I have been looking over the fine print in my accounts and so far have no problem with 2 of the 3 brokerages I use (Fidelity and Vanguard). I am not so enamored of the wording I found in the fine print of my Schwab Options Express account even though it is an IRA account:

Custody of Securities - Fully paid securities held by us for you, but which are not registered in your name, may be commingled with identical securities being held by other clients by us, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, or similar depositories. Securities held for accounts of customers with outstanding obligations, or deposited to secure the same, may from time to time, and without notice to such customer, be commingled with securities of other customers and used by us to pledge or re-pledge, hypothecate or re-hypothecate, or loan or deliver on contracts for other customers without our having in possession and control for delivery a like amount of similar securities.

A key point here is whether securities are held in Street name or registered to you. Here is some info on what that means:

http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/holdsec.htm

I will be discussing this with Schwab on Monday as I suspect this account is in Street Name. If so, I will switch it to Registered and, if not 100% sure the shares cannot be loaned will move the account. If I elect to do so I would like to think Schwab will then hypothecate or even re-hypothecate as to why I would do such a thing.