Editorial

                     


March 24, 2011

What is a Penny Stock?
Filed under: Investing 101,Small Cap Stocks,Stocks — Equities Staff @ 12:38 pm

Penny StocksPenny stocks come up a lot when doing research about investing and advertising and may have a new investor believing they have the potential to make someone a lot of money out of very little. In some cases, that can be true since they generally trade for under $5 with low market capitalization, but often times Penny stocks, which are traded outside of the major market exchanges, are tricky to regulate and have a history of being wrought with fraud.

Are Penny Stocks Safe?

Penny stocks are commonly regarded as highly speculative and high risk as a result of their lack of liquidity, large bid-ask spreads, small capitalization and the few disclosure requirements they are subject to. Some penny stocks have become more legitimate in recent years as a result of the new owner of the pink sheets. Penny stocks are usually traded on the Pink Sheets or the Over the Counter Bulletin Board. The Pink Sheets now require that the filings for penny stocks be taken online where they are subject to greater accountability. Prior to this, records of penny stocks existed only on paper.

The name penny stock does not imply that a penny stock trades for 1 cent since there is some debate on what can be considered a penny stock. Some investors consider a selected stock trading for under $5 a penny stock while others believe the term refers to stocks trading for under $1.  Typically a penny stock is a tiny company with speculative shares that is not required to file as exhausting disclosures, filings or meet as many regulatory standards as those trading on the more established exchanges. 

Comments

comments


About Equities Staff

The Equities staff is devoted to creating informational and educational content for investors and traders to better understand the financial markets. Equities.com is the leading financial media website that combines cutting-edge social networking capabilities (read more about Equities Staff)...
| |

Comments
What is the American Stock Exchange? | equities.com - 05/25/11

[...] AMEX are generally considered have market capitalization in the $300 million to $2 billion range. Micro-cap stocks have market capitalization under $300 million. Related Posts SliderRelated Posts The Nasdaq [...]

The Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board | equities.com - 05/25/11

[...] like the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange. Although companies with micro cap stocks or penny stocks must file all proper Securities and Exchange Commission reports to be listed on the Over the [...]

Pink Sheets Explained | equities.com - 05/25/11

[...] independent brokers to exchange securities. Generally, it is now known as a platform to trade penny stocks, and other micro cap stocks, which is stock of public companies which have a market capitalization [...]

3 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

 

Sector News



Market Overview

Symbol Last Change % Change
DJIA15,307.17-80.41-0.52
NASDAQ3,463.30-38.82417-1.11
S&P 500 EOD1,655.35-13.81-0.83
10yr Trsy20.260.985.08
Data is delayed 20 mins/EOD

Uncommon Wisdom with Fisher Investments

Fisher Investments
Japanese policymakers largely understand what their Chinese counterparts don’t—encouraging private firms to invest more and as they see fit is the best way to goad sustainable economic growth.

Behind the Frontlines with Mauldin Economics

John Mauldin
There is bipartisan legislation making its way through Congress that is a huge step in dealing with too big to fail. Taxpayers and investors should be paying attention.

Richard Suttmeier of ValuEngine

Richard Suttmeier
The daily chart for Hercules Offshore shows rising momentum with the stock above its 21-day, 50-day and 200-day simple moving averages.