A quirky corner of the U.S. stock market home to cannabis sellers, cryptocurrency trusts and other speculative investments is seeing record levels of activity.
Trading volume in over-the-counter stocks, which aren’t listed on exchanges, has surpassed $548 billion so far this year. That is already more than the total volume for all 2020, according to
the company that operates the main marketplace for such securities.
A big factor behind the surge is the bull market for digital currencies. The most popular OTC security this year in terms of value traded has been the
which trades under the ticker GBTC. The trust is a popular way for investors to bet on the price of bitcoin without holding actual units of the cryptocurrency.
Like the conventional stock market, the OTC markets have seen an influx of individual investors since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Such investors are often drawn to penny stocks, or cheap shares of companies too small to list on an exchange. One forum devoted to penny stocks on Reddit has 1.8 million members.
Penny stocks are risky and have a history of being prone to manipulation schemes. But enthusiasts say they can pay off for investors willing to do research and find opportunities in undervalued companies.
Doug Bober,
a 57-year-old store manager in Los Angeles, began trading stocks two years ago to build up his retirement savings. Most of his portfolio is now in penny stocks, such as
Solar Integrated Roofing Corp.
, a California-based company that installs solar panels on the rooftops of homes and businesses.
“Sure, I can play a blue chip. But if I buy a blue chip, I have to put down a lot of money and wait for a long time” to get a substantial return, Mr. Bober said. “With a penny, if you find a good, solid company, the upside is phenomenal.”
Mr. Bober says his penny-stock investing has been profitable, but he adds that people who can’t stomach the risk should stay away. “It’s not much different from going to Las Vegas,” he said. “You could lose a lot of money.”
Several studies have found that investors tend to lose money on penny stocks. From July 2011 to October 2020, the average annualized return of OTC shares of U.S. companies was -44%, according to calculations by
Sihan Zhang,
a doctoral student at the University of Alberta.
Read More: Crypto Boom, Retail Investors Fuel Rise in Over-the-Counter Stock