4

Another kind of chart I see quite often is a chart which shows a full year of steadily declining prices. Here's another bit of background information: the list my software works from is a list of stocks that were, a few months ago, trading at low prices - basically, they are penny stocks, or, certainly, they were penny stocks, when I compiled the list. I ought to add that they are, or were then, trading on a major exchange - the NASDAQ or the big boards. None of them were OTC stocks. In fact, if they are now off the major exchanges, I won't get a chart, even if the stock is still on my list. It is not, I'll also note, that I am averse to trading OTC stocks. It's just a result of the way I built the software. But it's true I chose to build it that way in part because stocks trading on the major exchanges are likely to trade somewhat actively, which is helpful.

The point, though, is that they are penny stocks - unless they've gone up a lot since I put them on my list - and penny stocks tend to "move a lot", compared to pricier shares. This mean that when I see a chart that shows a steady one year decline, it is quite likely the stock is trading, at the end of the year, at one half its price at the beginning of the year, or at an even smaller fraction of that price.