Ok maybe holding period was the wrong term, settlement period is what I was looking for. Most securities when traded have a 3 day settlement period as does WAMUQ. Any intelligent investor understands that the purpose for this period dates back to the beginning of the NYSE in which investors had 3 days to provide their brokers with the cash for the trade.
This is still true today for people dealing with live brokers and not trading online. However, companies have now utilized this time frame to decide who gets paid dividends. If Investor A sells a stock in the secondary market(which is what WAMUQ is traded in and if you dont know this you probably should not be buying bankruptcy securities in the first place) on the 23rd and the record date for a dividend is the 23rd, 24th or 25th, Investor A is entitled to the dividend, if the record date falls on the 3rd day or after Investor B is entitled to the dividend.
Settlements work in the same way. If people were to dump today and a the settlement goes thru friday, is declared and recorded, then investors buying in tomorrow would be SOL and depending on the form of compensation from WaMu they will either sit on their shares or be compensated for their principal.
I am a junior in college and just passed my Series 7, so I would appreciate it if my intelligence was not questioned. But we are all WAMUQ friends here and u do have the right to question me thanks for callin me out on the bad wording.
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