Brokers that allow Caveat Emptor OTC stocks

[lugub]

There is nothing illegal about it. Trading on gray stock is what was prohibited which had several moving to also block on CE, for whatever reason.

Many decisions they try to justify as protecting people from themselves, which makes no sense as "Buyer Beware" should be warning enough.

[bar1080]

With what brokerage? Certainly not using a reputable major US-based brokerage.

[lugub]

If it's a pink stock, you can trade it there with the otc pink sheets option regardless of CE. I have done it.

[Dan Money]

How many do they allow? or do you trade with them?

[lugub]

Yes.

[bar1080]

LOL: Webull’s small account holders are demographically similar to those of its larger rival, with an average age of 40 and average account size of $4,000,

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/02/webull-ceo-on-what-factors-differentiate-his-trading-platform-from-robinhood.html

That's about the same as Robinhood which reportedly has an average account size of $3,500. Compare to Morgan Stanley with an account average of about $300,000.

[creede]

Yeah. I think I saw that.

Someday a new company will emerge that will allow us to buy CE, Grey, and Expert Stocks.

Ain’t nothing illegal about it.

[bar1080]

Doubt there's a reputable broker who wants a clientele of slobbering microcap "players."

Webull Corp "incorporated in the Caymen Islands and owned by: Wang Anquan; Xiaomi; Shunwei Capital; Hongdao Capital; Bojiang Capital; Gopher Asset Management."

[I-Glow]

Webull doesn't allow one to buy CE stocks.

From the Webull policy:

"Due to the advanced risk of customer harm associated with Caveat Emptor designated securities, Webull Financial does not allow opening transactions in those stocks. Webull Financial also prohibits the transfer in of Caveat Emptor securities.

IG

[Dan Money]

Any new info on this?

[Dan Money]

Sadly no.

[bowlfan912]

any updates?

[mattsinvestmentclub]

At the time of my post. Yes. I did not proceed for personal reasons.

[creede]

Hey Dan, will do that next time I run across somebody.

I have conversations about it on my G2P board (I think) but not motivated enough to go find somebody.

You can only talk so much about this moronic communist nonsense.

Happy Friday.

[Dan Money]

You should get someone who lives in Canada to make a post here and talk about it.

[creede]

Thanks for checking, but that did not sound definitive.

If they don't do it, someone else will.

Matter of time because it's not illegal.

Nothing has changed except they made it more difficult for delisted stocks to have public quotes.

The proof is in Canada. If you live there you can buy and sell greys, expert, and CE stocks to your hearts desire.

They unilaterally cutoff access to stocks that do not have quotes. We simply do not have a way to place the order.

Someone can come in and provide a means for investors to place orders for those kinds of securities. They will have a boatload of customers and can figure out the best way to monetize their services.

Matter of time.

[Werbe]

Here is WeBulls answer to trading CE or expert otc stocks. Like I said.


Thank you for your interest.

We'll support trading OTC stocks in the near future. But CE OTC stocks and expert markets are not in our plan yet. Let us know if you have any other questions. 

Sincerely,
Jennifer
Webull eService Representative

[Golden Cross]

U don't know chit

[Dan Money]

"Suffered Investment Losses? Sue Your Stockbroker for their Fraud, Misconduct, or Negligence!"

That is a better point for a broker not to.

The protecting us from ourselves argument or brokers trying to have higher standards nonsense both are silly compared to a legit threat of them being sued if it is legit.

[Dan Money]

Hi Creede,

"We have been buying and selling Grey Sheet stocks for over 100 years. All of a sudden they are too dangerous?

Pleeeeeease."

I agree with you fully and as I said in my other point the fully regulated stocks can be just as dangerous and are. There was a story about a guy who bet his life savings on blockbuster stock. No broker saved him.

"Thats the same reason China is using to lock down about 40 million people to protect them from a strain of COVID as dangerous as the common cold."

Comparing covid to the common cold is a little extreme as some compare getting the shot/shots to some minor inconvenience that is not a big deal either for our health.

I am not qualified to say but if a government had no idea how serious a virus was if it was really serious it obviously would be horrible to not take it seriously. Covid obviously was never that serious where 20% or more of humans died from it or would but if it was and a government was super lax about it that would be worse for everyone.

"It's the same reason you give a child: "BECAUSE I TOLD YOU SO."

What they are doing should not sit well with anyone who does not like to be treated like a baby."

There is a valid point to what you are saying but I think you take it too far just like bar 1080 wants everyone to be more controlled/protected when they do not appear to bet/invest in those companies anyway and the regulated lottery has worse odds.

Where both of you draw the line and why is way past where I would obviously.

[creede]

Ok Werbe. Go in peace.

Thanks for the stimulating debate.

[Werbe]

Something did change and it wont ever go back.

I would say 95% if not all of brokers use OTC LINK ATS to facilitate/quote otc tickers so we can trade them. All the volume routed through that. Now they cannot use this anymore since by LAW, anything being quoted through this must be current. There is no other way to have real time, direct buy and sells going on. You think brokers would allow people to call in to buy and sell these all day?? Trying to match prices and order times etc? If there was some hidden way to do it, trust me we would be seeing hundreds of millions of volume on these. You would have POS groups getting together to manipulate people out of their hard earned money some more.

So what you have is brokers need to take on tons of liability to sponsor one or OTCM can. IMO, OTCM will be the savior of the wasteland. They will have the power to give these tickers their own version of 211 sponsor, and let them trade through OTC LINK again. OTCM is not doing this @ the moment because I believe it was FINRA or the SEC said they could not take payment for the approval process.

Long story short, no orders nothing zip nada. All imo of course, ive been wrong so many times before but Ive been right so many times before.... Which world do we land in?

[creede]

And I never said that WeBull would be providing quotes. Just a place where we can place orders, which can then be filled (possibly).

This is how it was before.

Nothing has changed for Grey or Expert stocks, they simply raised the criteria to have quotes.

Stocks that don't have quotes are considered grey or expert (which is still grey).

I should be able to place an order to buy those stocks just as we have been doing since I first started trading OTC stocks back in 2005 (or something like that).

Same for CE stocks.

WeBull can do that if they so choose and I would imagine they would get an enormous amount of new customers.

I cannot even buy shares right now for Expert Stocks which I know have been picked up by a custodian.

That makes no dang sense.

[Werbe]

Hmm twisting my words. I never said it was illegal for anyone to buy them but for anyone to publicly quote them. I will link the SEC fact sheet. There is no way around it. The public cannot use a platform to touch these besides liquidation @ the moment. Some people could say we're lucky to even have that option after the cutoff date.

I said earlier in my post anyone can sell any of these if they choose privately or liquidate if allowed. You really think any of these platforms could funnel millions of volume, thousands of trades in any other way?? Think about it, they cannot use any system right now so whatever people did back in the day to sell these outside of online trading platforms, I guarantee you cannot do anymore because the workload if allowed would be utterly impossible. Track all those trades in real time, prices real time lol get real.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-212

[creede]

What are you talking about? It's not illegal to buy or sell Grey, Expert, or CE stocks.

If you live in Canada you can do it right now.

The rule did not make it illegal. I have read the whole thing (or at least the important parts) several times.

The rule only gave strict instructions on which stocks are eligible for "public quotes". That's it.

The brokers acted "as-if" the rule made it illegal for them to place orders on Grey, Expert, or CE securities.

It certainly did not.

You are falling for their disinformation campaign.

WeBull can provide a means for people to put in blind offers to buy or sell grey, expert, and ce stocks if they so choose.

Show me the law that says someone cannot buy, sell, or own a stock that does not have public quotes.

It doesn't exist.

[Werbe]

No way possible they will allow it. The law states no public access. There is no system to allow it so I think peeps will be disappointed. If I log onto a trading platform and they allow me to see and purchase these tickers, they would be in deep doo doo. That simple. Reason why some other companies ran by billions have not done anything. Nothing can be done, need to adapt and keep moving.

[creede]

Werbe. Greys never had a public quote. You put in an order through your broker and then you waited to see if it got filled. Seasoned traders put in limit orders because you did not have a quote.

Thats because to complete the trade, brokers were required to literally call other brokers to determine best offers. I think they had to make 3 calls. Then they could fill the order.

Expert is just a grey stock that has been put on the OTC system so they do not have to literally pick up a phone (they created Expert for their convenience).

What I (and many others) are complaining about is that we can no longer put in orders to purchase Grey, Expert, or CE stocks.

People have been buying and selling stocks without "public quotes" for over a 100 years. Maybe even 200 (when was the stock market created?).

Now they have unilaterally blocked our ability to even attempt to purchase a stock that does not have quotes (hence the name "Grey").

Rumor has it that WeBull is going to allow its clients to purchase any OTC stock they like -- grey, expert, ce, whatever.

Of course, there will not be an accurate price (AKA "public quote", "real time quote", "L1", or "L2") since those stocks do not meet the minimum requirement under the new rule for brokers to publish quotes.

I suppose they will do what has always been done, which is provide the last known time and sales.

[Werbe]

Level 2 and being publicly quoted are completely different things. Not sure you understand what I am saying. The brokers chose to block access because they knew the cutoff deadline. Anything not current after that deadline would not be able to be publicly quoted, meaning they could not even show a price to the public for the Securities. They had to do this, it wasnt up to the broker houses. Again, thinking webull etc can circumvent SEC law is silly. They'll let you buy and sell otc like any other platform, they will block access to expert etc because they do not have the legal right to show quoted prices for non current tickers. See when I read it and not ask my little group of online friends, I make mynown opinion KREEDE. Check it out, it's what humans were supposed to do.

[bar1080]

YOU may adore the sleazy broker who accepts your garbage trades but upon your death your estate and heirs may go after him and his employer for your losses. The estate may even have an obligation to sue him.

Such litigation is common and will get much more common if the market continues to decline. For example:

"Suffered Investment Losses? Sue Your Stockbroker for their Fraud, Misconduct, or Negligence!"

http://astanehelaw.com/2019/06/21/suffered-investment-losses-sue-your-stockbroker-for-their-fraud-misconduct-or-negligence/

[creede]

Werbe… what are you talking about?

Nobody is talking about Greys or Expert tickers having L2 quotes.

Our chief complaint is how all the brokers made a unilateral move to block us from buying and selling Expert, Grey, and CE stocks under the guise that it’s now illegal.

Those of us who actually read the new rule knew they were full of it, so they finally conceded and then said it was “for our own protection”.

Webull is saying they are going to allow us buy and sell whatever we want — which is how it should be.

[Werbe]

Webull is another trading platform. They cannot allow quotes on a stock, they just allow trading on quoted tickers. Not sure what you expect them to do, its like thinking tda etc can somehow circumvent SEC law. These tickers CANNOT be publicly quoted, its that simple.

Let me ask you this, how do you think it's fair They show us these quotes without consequences. Here's a comparison. I have a car lot and dealers on site. We take consignment, don't care what is brought in or what lies are on the window sticker. It's okay we say because another dealership verified everything decade's ago and we let that verification be piggybacked even though the car has been demolished. Even though they call it a Ferrari and it's really a Toyota Tercel.

That is what was happening, tickers being quoted when everyone knew it was fake. If they want to be quotable, they must meet certain requirements and whoever decides to quote them is liable. That is how I take it for any tickers coming out of expert that is not foreign based.

[creede]

Guess we shall see when Webull launches

[jtomm]

Amen. We're seeing a slow but sure administrative takeover of the country by all this woke nonsense. The govt makes it so onerous and/or punitive to not go along with their narrative of how the future should look, that businesses are basically forced to go along with the govt if they want to keep their licenses, etc. It's disgusting and it's ruining every industry and thus ruining the country.

[ErnieBilco]

Brokers are not fiduciaries they are a market conduit and they should accept orders placed by their customers - garbage or not - it's not their place to not place trades just because they dislike them - THIS IS STILL AMERICA FOR THE TIME BEING.

I make my own investing decisions, brokers are simply a conduit. Most brokerages are full of imbeciles who probably never traded a day in their lives so why should I accept their ideas regarding any investment scheme?

[Werbe]

Hi Kreede.

Cannot see any broker allowing them to trade with the new law in place. There are no quotes available for them to even show us. At this moment, they're priceless(not in the good sense) securities. You can always trade your shares to other people for whatever you can haggle for them of course, not sure the process to get your shares in that form to transfer but its your assets and you can private sell them for whatever you want.

IMO, until OTCM can give power I dont see anything happening. Any 211 form will now have to be backed by the sponsor, so they put their whole firm on the line just quoting 1 ticker. OTCM has the foundation in place and is almost @ the point where they can give a review process to make a security quotable. I that think will be the saving grace, them having a wild idea to try and corral the OTC into an actual exchange.

[creede]

They should be allowing CE stocks. It’s not illegal.

Most of the CE warnings were placed on there because some third party frontloaded a stock and then did a spam blast.

Why should current shareholders still be penalized?

More bullcrap

[creede]

Hi Dan,

The difference here is they are taking away freedoms.

We have been buying and selling Grey Sheet stocks for over 100 years. All of a sudden they are too dangerous?

Pleeeeeease.

You cited examples of where things became less restrictive.

In this case they have become more restrictive and the only reason cited is: “for your own protection.”

Thats the same reason China is using to lock down about 40 million people to protect them from a strain of COVID as dangerous as the common cold.

It's the same reason you give a child: "BECAUSE I TOLD YOU SO."

What they are doing should not sit well with anyone who does not like to be treated like a baby.

[Dan Money]

They do not do CE unless some massive change happened I am unaware of.

[Dan Money]

bar 1080 and creede you both make good points.

bar 1080,

When it comes to stocks I dont care about or want a broker or government to protect me from myself.

Enron and Blockbuster shareholders where was their protection?

Based on that logic there is tons of gamblers for the lottery,scratchers,sports betting that even if it is not equivalent to a scam company they still will lose that money and some of them would be grateful to be saved.

I do not want to be saved for any of those but yet brokers and/or the government want to save me/us from some stocks but not others?

They could just outlaw all stocks and go all the way with it if they really cared about that.

One compromise is someone who asked to be saved which in Canada I heard you can ask to be put on a list so the casinos will kick you out or not let you in.For the casinos it is great because they allegedly and legally do not have to pay you if you win if you put your own name on the list.I doubt this really helps though but I could be wrong.I have never been to Canada before.

I am American is there some list a gambling addict can be put on here from those things? If not where is their protection?

When it comes to garbage OTC stocks you can make money on them if you know what you are doing bar 1080 and they have much better odds than the regulated lottery.


creede,

When it comes to an extreme example on unlimited freedom I do not agree with that either.I am not saying your words are implying it but I will give my view on that.

It would take a very highly evolved human society for me to be cool with that which we so are not now.

One example someone used was if a restaurant was selling food that was making people sick and/or killing people that if there was no regulation eventually people would know by word of mouth or the news.

Routine health inspections can obviously prevent or stop these things from happening in theory.I would prefer we would not need them in human society but sadly it is obvious that we do.

They will shut a place down and fine the owner and without that some owners would never change it.

"taking away freedoms "for your own good" is the path to tyranny"

It can be the path to it but they can also stop at a certain point which they do on some things.

I am 40 years old and I remember a time when people would not think gay marriage or marijuana would ever be legal like now.It took my grandparents generation to die to make that happen.

There is some American gun nuts that act like the government is going to do all these bad things to them and some of their points there is not proof to support it.

In theory though any government could become like N Korea too at any time.

[creede]

Looks like WeBull might be opening the door.

Not sure yet if this includes greys and Expert, but it certainly should.

OTC Trading is Coming Soon! #Webull #OTC #OTCtrading pic.twitter.com/5iHWfydF01

— Webull (@WebullGlobal) May 9, 2022

The large brokers made a unilateral decision to stop allowing its clients to buy and sell grey and expert stocks.

The worst part is they misled everyone into thinking it was a part of the new SEC rule.

IT WASN'T.

Maybe this is the beginning of the return to the existence of true discount brokers.

WE DID NOT enter into some kind of relationship with our brokers when we deposited money into their firms. WE DID NOT ask them to manage or money for us and therefore they DO NOT HAVE a fiduciary duty to protect us from ourselves.

GIVE ME A BREAK!

It's utter nonsense.

[creede]

And you should not be allowed to eat tacos - or watch Steve Martin movies either for that matter.

The State sees no real benefit in humor. You are just getting fatter sitting there watching the idiot box/phone/screen.

Get outside and start working the fields, or cleaning the streets, or painting whatever they say to paint.

It's their fiduciary duty to make sure you are not wasting minutes in the day.

LMAO

If you cannot see that taking away freedoms "for your own good" is the path to tyranny then maybe its time to stop and read some Orwell.

[bar1080]

From what I see, respected US brokerages are thrilled to ditch penny gambling addicts with their tiny accounts and the litigation that sometimes follows when Grandpa blows up the family savings.

[creede]

"Fiduciary" is a bull-crap term that's being used out of context to establish more control.

Talk about a slippery slope.

Your bank could start using that exact same term to justify declining debit card transactions.

Sorry, Mr Bar1080. It would be a violation of our fiduciary duty to allow you to purchase that handgun, box of ammunition, bottle of gin, or box of cigars.

Same goes for when you stopped at Tora's Taco Palace. Tacos are no longer on the approved foods list.

Remember, you trust us to not allow you to spend your money (or your kids inheritance) in a such a reckless manner.

Your transactions will rarely be declined if you stick with water, fruits, and vegetables.

Thank you for your full cooperation.

Your card should be reactivated by the end of the day.

BB

P.S. Don't forget there's a $50 penalty for each time you tried to make illegal purchases using our bank card.

Welcome to Cuba.

[bar1080]

Sorry, but brokers are legally required to shun unsuitable investments which include much OTC rubbish... Junk that's accepted on IHUB, but almost nowhere else. In the US, all or virtually all brokers have gone to the fiduciary standard.

I'm a large, long-time investor with accounts at three houses. I'm especially gratified that Vanguard has lead the way in prohibiting buys of especially dangerous derivatives such as 3X exchanged traded funds and flimsy inverse exchange traded notes described by some market pundits as Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction. I want my brokers to have the highest standards in all matters. Doesn't every brokerage client?

Brokers' work definition doesn't include -- and can't legally include -- placing your garbage casino bets. A fiduciary doesn't facilitate his clients' financial ruin.