Trading has been halted on the ASX since around 14:00AEST this afternoon, after an unspecified technical issue delayed the market opening.
This was so bloody annoying today lol literally tried to buy before work and then after work and couldn't both times all while watching the POG steadily rise. Havn't bought shares for close to a year, Murphys law eh
So the ASX wasnt working for a while. Say the whole ASX irretrievably melted down, what would those who held shares be left with? Shares, that's what! What will have happened to the physical companies behind the shares? Nothing, except their shares cant be bought or sold for a while. Who will still own the companies? Not no-one, shareholders. Shareholders will still have paper certificates of their shares from CHESS (Clearing House Electronic Sub-register System) - of course I could explain what that is, but I decline. Registries will still have their files of shareholders - unless they simultaneously melted down. Brokers will have their records of shares transacted through them. Shareholders may well have kept their emailed contracts of share purchases in a file.
But no liquidity which can be very bad, especially if creditor obligations have to be met. There's also the possibility that those bits of paper will be worth substantially less when a market eventually reopens. Sure, there is a record that you have them, but it sucks if by the time you can liquidate them, they are worth substantially less than what you hoped to sell them for. Imagine you were holding a stock, lets say LEH, and you decide the fundamentals really suck so Monday you'll dump your position at a slight loss. So, Monday rolls around but f*ck, the exchange is down... crap, crap, crap!! You still have LEH!! Then Tuesday happens...
That was a function of the business Lehman was in and how the company conducted itself. You own shares in a mining company or a bank that you're happy with. The ASX blows up. It takes weeks to rebuild it. It opens for trading - what, you're going to rush to the exits when there's nothing wrong with the business of your companies? If you're imagining a situation where the ASX blows up, and mysteriously during the no trading period there's bad news about your companies, you're in the same boat as everyone else - you get to join the rush to sell at the same time, just as you would had there been no exchange breakdown.
Solid arguments both sides, but if orchestrated along with a bank holiday, you are left holding nothing except for worthless digital and paper promises.
I think the better inference here in regards to a cashless society is that if the ASX can be down for a day then surely the banks can too. And if the banks go down for a week in a cashless society, then what? Cars and trucks stop, most people become very worried about food; it would become a very slippery slope very quickly.
