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Investors must define the order they wish the broker-dealer to execute. There are two main order types: the Limit Order and the Market Order.
“The Spread” is a term that applies to all markets and represents the difference between the highest bid price and the lowest ask price. For example if “the bid” is $10.00 and “the ask” is $11.00, then the spread is $1.00. The spread is one of the ways that broker-dealers, specifically market makers (a type of broker-dealer that provides liquidity by quoting and trading both sides of the market), make money.
Broker-dealers may charge an additional ‘access fee’ to broker-dealers who want to trade at their quoted price. The fee maximums are based on the tick size (> .01) or price (< .01). OTC Markets QAP (Quote Access Payment) functionality allows broker-dealer to dynamically set their fees or rebates.
OTC Markets Group established a categorization system to indicate the level of financial and corporate disclosure provided by the companies using its quotation system. Apart from the OTCQX tier, the disclosure categories do not signify issuer quality or merit of any security. Categorization is based on the level and timeliness of a company's disclosure and OTCQB and any of the OTC Pink categories can include both high quality as well as speculative, distressed, or questionable companies. Investors are encouraged to use caution when considering many these companies for investment.
All OTC securities are assigned a market tier based on their reporting method (SEC Reporting, Alternative Reporting Standard) and disclosure category – Current, Limited or No Information. Securities on OTCQX, the highest tier of the OTC market, are required to have Current disclosure and meet minimum financial qualifications. Securities in OTCQB tier must be SEC, Bank or Insurance reporting and must be Current in their disclosure.
Short selling is a trading strategy where an investor, believing that a security is over-valued, borrows (from a broker-dealer or institutional investor) and sells a security and then repurchases and returns (to the broker-dealer or institutional investor) the security at a lower price. The difference between the sale price and the purchase price is the investor’s profit.
In an ideal world, market makers want to buy at the bid price and sell at the ask price. This scenario allows them to have very little risk and make “the spread†on each share transacted. Unfortunately for market makers, this scenario is not extremely common due to price volatility – movements in the price of a security.
All states require financial institutions, including brokerage firms, to report when personal property has been abandoned or unclaimed after a period of time specified by state law — often five years. Before a brokerage account can be considered abandoned or unclaimed, the firm must make a diligent effort to try to locate the account owner.
The National Quotation Bureau changed its name to Pink Sheets LLC in 2000 and subsequently to Pink OTC Markets in 2008. The company eventually changed to its current name, OTC Markets Group, in 2010.[5] Today, a network of over 160 broker-dealers price and trade a wide spectrum of securities on the OTC Markets platform.
Under the Securities Act of 1933, a company that offers or sells its securities must register the securities with the SEC or find an exemption from the registration requirements. The Act provides companies with a number of exemptions. For some of the exemptions, such as rules 505 and 506 of Regulation D, a company may sell its securities to what are known as "accredited investors."
Many OTC securities are relatively illiquid, or "thinly traded," which tends to increase price volatility. Illiquid securities are often difficult for investors to buy or sell without dramatically affecting the quoted price. In some cases, the liquidation of a position in an OTC security may not be possible within a reasonable period of time.
Quotes for all OTC securities are available on OTCMarkets.com by entering a symbol in the quote search area at the top left of any page. All OTCQX securities display real-time level 2 quotes while all OTCQB and OTC Pink securities display real-time inside (best bid and ask) quotations. Quotes are updated from 6:00 AM to 4:00 PM on all trading days.
The broker should ask you about your investment goals and personal financial situation, including your income, net worth, and investment experience, and how much risk you are willing to take on. Be honest.
Once broker-dealers have created or updated their quote, they may continue to monitor the market; if prices change (to satisfy the limit price) they may send a trade message to another broker-dealer. They may also receive an OTC Link trade message against their standing quote or for a different price/size.
Does it sound too good to be true? Then it probably is. You should never make a decision about investing your money in a particular company solely on the basis of a "hot tip" or someone's advice. It is important that you make an informed decision based on your thorough research which includes the company's annual report, current financial statements and material news.
This tier indicates companies that are unwilling or unable to provide disclosure to the public markets. Companies in this category do not make current information available via OTC Markets disclosure and news service, or if they do, the available information is older than six months. This category includes defunct companies that have ceased operations as well as 'dark' companies with questionable management and market disclosure practices. Securities of publicly traded companies that are not willing to provide information to investors are considered highly risky.
FINRA has established OATSSM as an integrated audit trail of order, quote, and trade information for NASDAQ and OTC equity securities. FINRA uses this audit trail system to recreate events in the life cycle of orders and monitor more completely the trading practices of its members.
The security is being promoted to the public, but adequate current information about the issuer has not been made available to the public. OTC Markets believes adequate current information must be publicly available during any period when a security is the subject of ongoing promotional activities having the effect of encouraging trading of the issuer's securities.
A good starting point for research is the OTC market tier structure – which quickly indicates the level and timeliness of information available for OTC companies.
Equity Securities, including OTCQX, OTCQB and Pink Sheets securities, which improves pricing for investors and results in greater volumes and better overall liquidity. In 2008 FINRA expanded the rule to cover real-time trade reporting and dissemination of trade reports to include OTC ADRs and Foreign Ordinary shares.
To ensure the integrity of quotations, FINRA requires every member to trade at its publicly quoted prices. Integrity of quotes is essential to the normal operation of the OTC market as the failure to honor quotations, also known as “backing away,†can be disruptive to a fair and orderly market.
Bearish Reversal Candlestick Patterns: The Bearish Reversal Candlestick Pattern comes in over 12 different forms. These include the Abandoned Baby, the Bearish Engulfing Pattern, the Harami, the Dark Cloud Cover, the Evening Star and the Shooting Star. Bearish Reversal Candlestick Patterns should form in an uptrend and most will require Bearish Confirmation as reinforcement of the pattern. Use additional anaylsis to further support your findings.
Directional Movement Index: The directional movement index (or DMI) was developed by J. Welles Wilder in order to determine the overall direction of a given asset's prices. DMI is composed of two lines, one representing positive direction ( DI) and one representing a negative direction (-DI).
To calculate the DMI, a trader first calculates the difference between the current high and the previous high (HiDiff), as well as the difference between the previous low and the current low (LowDiff). HiDiff and LowDiff are then compared. If HiDiff is greater in value, a variable DMI is set to HiDiff and a variable -DMI is set to 0. If LowDiff is greater, -DMI is set to LowDiff and DMI is set to 0. If the two values are equal, or if no trend is seen in either highs or lows, both values are set to 0. A calculation known as the Welles Summation is then performed on both DMI and -DMI, resulting in two numbers: DI and -DI, both ranging from 0 to 100. The directional movement index consists of these two points.
The DMI can be used in strongly trending markets to determine strong buy and sell signals. The DMI generates a strong buy signal when DI crosses above -DI at any point and generates a strong sell signal when DI crosses below -DI at any point. In non-trending markets, this indicator becomes less useful.
The directional movement index is the basic value from which the average directional index (or ADX) is derived.
Average True Range: Average True Range is one measure of volatility of a given market. The measure was created by J. Welles Wilder, Jr. in his 1979 book “New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems”.
Average True Range is based on the True Range, which is defined as the greatest of three measures:
•The difference between the greatest high and the greatest low
•The absolute value of the current high minus the latest close
•The absolute value of the current low minus the latest close
As a rule, fourteen measurements of the True Range are used in deriving the ATR. These measurements can be taken for four different time intervals: within a day, daily, weekly and monthly. The first ATR in a series is simply the average of the TR for fourteen periods. Future ATRs in the series are derived by the following algorithm:
•Multiply the previous 14-day ATR by 13.
•Add the current ATR.
•Divide the sum by 14.
The measurement is useful due to its sensitivity to large fluctuations in the value of a currency across several periods of measurement, even when the difference between the high and low values for a single period is very small (which would falsely indicate a low overall volatility.)
Analyst: When analyzing the market, analysts can generally be divided into two camps - fundamentals and technicals.
Fundamental analysts are those who mainly look at the fundamental aspects of an economy in forming their opinions. They stay on top of the markets by reading and analyzing what the current economic data say about current market conditions, what is fundamentally driving the market, and where it's headed.
Technical analysts are those who primarily rely on chart indicators and patterns to help predict where price will move next. Some tools that technical analysts use are Fibonacci retracement, candlesticks and momentum indicators.
Analyst: When analyzing the market, analysts can generally be divided into two camps - fundamentals and technicals.
Fundamental analysts are those who mainly look at the fundamental aspects of an economy in forming their opinions. They stay on top of the markets by reading and analyzing what the current economic data say about current market conditions, what is fundamentally driving the market, and where it's headed.
Technical analysts are those who primarily rely on chart indicators and patterns to help predict where price will move next. Some tools that technical analysts use are Fibonacci retracement, candlesticks and momentum indicators.
Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944: The Bretton Woods Agreement is a pact that was made all the way back in the 1940's by the economic powers at that time to stabilize currencies. What it did was establish a fixed exchange rate for currencies in terms of gold to make trade among nations easier. This kind of exchange rate system lasted until 1971, before the US finally decided to end the convertibility of the dollar to gold.