Dummy CUSIP Number

Categories: Tech, Metrics, Banking

Okay, insert the word "dummy" in front of everything. And just See: CUSIP Number for deets.

But a dummy CUSIP number exists as a placeholder for another number that then becomes the real CUSIP number.

Why would a company do this? Well, often there are glitches in trading or the prices or commission attributed to a given financial transaction—so it needs a dummy.

Think: Congress.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is a CUSIP Number?119 Views

00:00

Finance, a la shmoop. What is a CUSIP number? Close that's a Cusack number

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867-53-09, yeah we know there. So yeah you know when you go to the grocery

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store and the cashier swipes your apples eight times across that little bar code [Apple being scanned]

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reader thingy and it doesn't work again and again and again and then she finally [Error coming up on the screen]

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pulls back the plastic from where the Apple was tagged hunts for her glasses [Cashier putting on her glasses]

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and then visually finds the number associated with that Apple and then just

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manually types it in. Well that's the fruit equivalent of a CUSIP number [Guy talking in a supermarket]

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A CUSIP number is well just that only applied to securities, stocks, bonds even

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muni bonds. CUSIP stands for committee on uniforms security identification [The meaning of each letter is shown]

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procedures, and is basically just the serial number system of securities, but [CUSIP definition written on a 100 dollar bill]

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has nine digits, the first six represent the original issuer of the security like

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coca-cola shares when it went public a gazillion years ago. Then the next two [The fix 6 digits are highlighted]

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characters refer to that type of security at hand like is it a basic

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equity bond, muni bond and the ninth digit is riboflavin yeah it's just there

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to be sure the other digits are all accurate and assures that there's no [The 3 digits meaning are shown]

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replication in any of the other CUSIP index number sets. So yeah CUSIP numbers

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make the securities easier to track because it's awfully hard to get a

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microchip into one of them. [Microchip pulled out of a bond certificate]

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)