Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Did you ever wonder what the "Pink Sheets" are?

I looked it up and learned more than I wanted to know.

"Companies will typically be listed on the OTCBB for one of two reasons:

(1) The company has been delisted from a major exchange. When a company is facing tough times and is unable to meet the requirements for continued listing on the Nasdaq or NYSE, it will be delisted. This usually happens to companies that are under financial strain and near bankruptcy. Even when listed on the OTCBB, companies are still required to maintain SEC filings and minimum requirements set by the OTCBB; however, these requirements are considerably easier to meet than those set by the national exchanges. If a company undergoes bankruptcy proceedings or misses certain SEC filings, an additional letter will be added to the company's ticker symbol to notify investors of this problem.

Typically, companies are on the Pink Sheets because either they are too small to be listed on a national exchange or they do not wish to make their budgets and accounting statements public.
Companies listed on the Pink Sheets are difficult to analyze because it is tough to obtain accurate information about them. The companies on the Pink Sheets are usually penny stocks and are often targets of price manipulation. They should only be purchased with extreme caution."

I'm not surprised about the "...do not wish to make their budgets and accounting statements public." That's what got us into this mess in the first place. What happened to transparency?


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