Almost all shares are held in street name, but as a shareholder you have the option of either having the shares registered directly in your name through the com

Almost all shares are held in street name, but as a shareholder you have the option of either having the shares registered directly in your name through the company or their transfer agent or to be issued physical stock certificates (usually for a fee). As an example, I used to own a couple of shares of both Apple and IBM. My shares were held directly in my name by computershare, which is the transfer agent for both companies. When I sold them, someone _probably_ bought them through a brokerage, which means that computer share updated the registration to name Cede & co as the registered owner of the stock, and cede updated an entry indicating that the buyers brokerage owned the shares, and the buyers brokerage updated an entry that said that the buyer owned the shares.