In April 1978 I owned 100 shares of AT&T stock valued at $5,894.07. On my most recent AT&T statement (07/13), I owned 60.181 shares valued at $2,175.38. All dividends have always been reinvested with no sales. I can't comprehend that after 35 years (and all dividends reinvested) the stock is only valued $2,175.38. My question is do you agree? And if so who do I see to get it corrected. Back in 2002, I notice I wasn't receiving my dividend statements and hadn't for some time (that being my fault for not keeping track of the stock) and called EquiServe to inquired. It was then I discovered that they had been sending my dividend statements to another state to a person with the same name as mine. This individual stopped the reinvestment and was taken cash. He even reported the loss of my 100 share certificated and had a new one issued and sent to his address. It took me almost a year to get this straight and even now I'm not sure it was done properly. Aside from this fiasco, do you think something is wrong and any suggestion as to how to correct it? Thanks -Larry

OK, this is going to get complicated...

In 1978 AT&T Corp was valued at around $50/share, so you're starting data sounds reasonable.

On Jan 1, 1984 AT&T Corp divested the seven Baby Bells (local telephone companies), so depending on the election you made at that time you would have received shares in one or more of Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwest Bell, and US West. The value of your remaining AT&T shares at that point was reduced to 28.67% of its value from Dec 31 1983. So at that time your AT&T stock would have been worth around $20/share.

In 1996 AT&T Corp divested Lucent Technologies, and 28% of your AT&T value went onto the new LU shares at that time, leaving 72% value in AT&T.

Also in 1996 AT&T divested NCR, reducing its value another 5.6%.

Then in 2001 AT&T divested its wireless business, reducing its value by another 22.34%.

So as of July, 2001, your original AT&T shares have been converted into a whole bunch of other stocks, and the remaining value of AT&T was about 15.1% of what it originally was in 1978. I have to wonder why you didn't ask about the value of all those other stocks that you picked up throughout all this.

Sometime later AT&T Corp merged with Southwest Bell, forming a new company that they named AT&T Inc. So now it really gets confusing - if you look up the value of "AT&T" today it's that combined company, not the old AT&T Corp. But I must say that in general if you started with $5894 in AT&T Corp back in 1978 and now you have $2175 in AT&T Inc, that may be correct. Keep in mind you also have - or had - stocks in all those baby bells plus the various spinouts of Lucent, NCR, and other bits and pieces. Hope this helps, but if you want more details I would suggest that you (a) get a complete listing of the stock transaction history from Equiserve, and (b) contact the AT&T Inc stock registrar to see if they have records of your holdings.