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Accounting
Par Value
A tiny legal dollar amount printed on a stock certificate that has almost nothing to do with the real market price.
Par value used to matter more in the old days for legal reasons. Today it mainly affects how Additional Paid-in Capital is recorded when stock is issued above par.It's like the $1 sticker on a designer T-shirt that was really sold for $49 — the sticker is basically meaningless now.
Real world: Most modern stocks have a par value of $0.01 or even no par value, but the actual selling price might be $150 per share.
💡 Don't confuse par value with real value — it's just an old legal number that accountants still track.