-$9,223,372,036,854.78

Written By: bmiraski on July 31, 2008 No Comment

BY BENJAMIN MIRASKI, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

I owned 20 shares of XM Satellite Radio and let’s just say that 20 shares of XM Satellite Radio did not make me a millionaire.

Instead, I apparently owe trillions of dollars to… someone, enough to cover the debts of XM, its merger with Sirius Satellite Radio, and the national debt of $9.5 trillion 20 times over.

How?

On Wednesday, the merger between Sirius [[SIRI]] and XM officially took place. The merger involved an exchange of 4.6 shares of Sirius for every share of XM.

Google Finance, in a perpetual beta release, didn’t get this memo, and apparently doesn’t update portfolios in the case of mergers automatically.

And so, when logging into my account today, I was greeted by a stock price on XM shares of -$9,223,372,036,854.78.

Google happily shares what the beta label means:

“The ‘beta’ label means that the product is still being tested and refined; we generally find that the best way to improve new products is to get feedback directly from users on what works and what doesn’t. So if you have comments or suggestions about Google Finance, we’d love to hear from you.”

I think I might have something they can work on, and I apparently owe enough money to someone to cover the cost.

Tags: Google, Investing, national debt, Sirius Sattelite Radio, XM Sattelite Radio