If you have a brokerage account with margin capabilities, meaning you can borrow against the stocks in your account, you are responsible for repaying the debt, even if your entire account goes to $0. For example, if you owned $100,000 worth of a stock and borrowed $25,000 against your shares to buy a new car, you will still owe the $25,000 if the company stock goes bankrupt. In the event that a publicly-listed company declares bankruptcy, the company's shareholders may be entitled to a portion of the liquidated assets, depending on which shares they hold and how much If you own a stock that's subsequently delisted from the stock exchange on which it had been trading, you might think that's a bad thing and in many cases, it is a bad thing. But there are some circumstances in which a delisting might not indicate a problem.