Pink, grey markets revisited
No. 1 Pinksheets is not an exchange, it’s a quotation service for market makers. It does not list securities. Therefore, companies cannot list securities on the Pink Sheets.
No. 2 Caveat Emptor is a tier within the Pink Sheet service. Pinksheets categorizes all securities into tiers that inform investors whether an issuer has made adequate public information available in a timely manner. Caveat Emptor is their bottom rung tier, but being in this tier doesn’t mean a thing in terms of the stock tradability or lack thereof, it’s simply a sticker put on by Pinksheets and doesn’t mean a thing.
No. 3 A company cannot be delisted from Pinksheets, since it is not an exchange (see No 1). The SEC may, however, revoke the BLLN registration. In this case, market makers can no longer make a market in BLLN stock and BLLN will then become a “Grey Market” stock.
No. 4 Grey Market. The Pinksheets will continue to provide Grey Market quotes, but there is a difference. Since market makers cannot make a market, they can only act as the conduit to the market for broker/dealers and hence, their sell/buy quoting comes from real sell/buy request from the B/Ds (so called solicited quotes). Since there is no centralized service for quotes (a la Pinksheets) on the Grey Market, it’s near impossible to get a best execution of orders on any trade.
No. 5 The SEC may very well revoke the registration for BLLN, since it has not kept up with its periodic reporting as required by the SEC. Actually BLLN is severely delinquent in its periodic filings with the Commission, having not filed any periodic reports since spring of 2007. Being quoted on the Pinksheets does not relinquish the company of its periodic reporting obligations (contrary to the belief of most people). A company’s obligation to periodic reporting is tied to its SEC registration, not to where the securities are quoted. BLLN can and should therefore file a Form 15-F with the SEC to terminate the registration of its securities and to suspend its duty to file reports with the SEC.
No.6 It's a 120 day process from the time a company receives the letter from the SEC with threats of revoking their registration for failure to file periodic reports to the time of actual deregistration.
No. 7 I added at 0.18 today. I’m still around just not following the day to day action anymore
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer". F Zappa
