what is good delivery 
good delivery refers to the unhindered transfer of ownership of a security from a seller to a buyer with all necessary requirements having been met this used to be a rather complex process although nowadays thanks to electronic exchanges that facilitate the digital transfer and clearing of many securities good delivery has become automated and generally much more straightforward understanding good deliverygood delivery occurs when a security s transfer is unimpeded by restrictions or other issues that would prevent its physical or virtual delivery to the buyer nowadays good delivery is usually determined by computers however in the past securities were inspected by a transfer agent to ensure that individual paper certificates were authenticated and registration requirements were met in order for the buyer to take the delivery to qualify for good delivery stock certificates must be in good physical condition be endorsed by the seller or seller s agent and be delivered in the correct denomination that matches the exact number of shares to transfer historically good delivery of securities from a seller to a buyer had been an issue in financial markets the buyer needed to know for sure that they would receive the correct stock certificates that the certificates were indeed authentic and that they would actually get physical delivery after paying the seller for them regulated stock exchanges and clearing houses sprang up as trusted third parties to facilitate trading and standardize the requirements for making good delivery today with electronic exchanges computerized settlement and clearing facilities these issues are largely a thing of the past however the presence of share transfer restrictions can still hurt the possibility of a stock s good delivery for example insider stock such as that issued directly to a company s executives may have certain restrictions that disallow sale outside the company without first having offered the shares for sale to existing shareholders rule 144 can allow for the sale of some restricted securities if they meet certain conditions 1good delivery criteriathe criteria for what constitutes good delivery varies from market to market or from security to security but it is a prerequisite to settling a transaction many stock markets today allow for easy trading in odd lots or even fractional shares but for stock markets that enforce round lots there may be restrictions on how to deliver those lots because the most commonly traded unit of stock has traditionally been 100 shares a round lot stock certificates should be denominated in one of the following for bond markets good delivery should be made using multiples of 1 000 or sometimes 5 000 par value sometimes with a maximum par value of 100 000 for an unregistered bearer bond to be in good delivery form it must be delivered with all unpaid coupons still attached for commodities markets good delivery criteria are spelled out by the exchange and incorporated explicitly into futures contracts specifications for example the london bullion market association lbma specified good delivery in physical gold as 