Everybody wants to trade penny stocks. The reason for that is that they have the reputation of having big percentage gains (or losses) in any given day. You can make (or lose) a load boat load of money real quick.
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A list of penny stocks can be found almost anywhere on the internet. Why not, these companies need to raise capital so they can expand their business or even to buy the needed equipment so their company can grow one day be one of the big dogs. There are so many penny stocks out there that are traded everyday, but where are they list? On which board do they trade?
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Most of these stocks are traded on the secondary boards, OTCBB (over the counter bulletin board), Pink Sheets and a few others.
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The main reason that they are so popular is because they are cheap enough where the average person can afford them. How cheap? Well, a stock is considered a penny stock when it’s price per share is less than $5. Many of them are actually less than $1 (they really are penny stocks).
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Just because they are that cheap doesn’t mean that you’ll make a ton of money. Some of these stocks will sit at those levels for months and in a few cases, years. Many amateur traders or newcomers feel that these stocks are on their way up and also feel they can’t get any cheaper. That can’t be further from the truth. If you look around on some of these lists of penny stocks, you will see some even trade in what is referred to as sub-penny. Stay away from these types of stocks. Only one out of thousand will ever get out of this range.

If you want a list of penny stocks, go to Yahoo Finance and type in pink sheet or OTCBB, you will get a list of stocks that you can pick through. Be careful and do your due diligence on the company before investing.
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P.S. Want to learn more about the stock market? take a free two week trail with Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

Now a days it’s really hard to find any decent safe investments. The old buy and hold routine doesn’t work in these trouble times, and as for trying to day trade, you’re taking your hard earned money in your own hands.
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A safe Investment right now seems to be in CD’s, bonds and Treasury bonds, but the problem there is that the return is quite low. After having your portfolio, need it be a discretionary one or your 401K/IRA, beaten up as bad as it has in the last year. Some may not want to deal with a 3% return on their money and have it tied up for nine months or longer to get it.
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High yield safe investments like junk bonds aren’t any better. They involve alot of risk and again after what we’ve gone through, do you really need more risk?
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The only safe investment advice that I would be comfortable giving you is to do your research into strong companies (of course you won’t know they’re strong until after the research) that have been beaten up because of the market as a whole brought the price down.
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One company that has taken a beaten because of the hedge fund redemption is Quanta Services Inc. (NYSE:PWR). The company has a great balance sheet and has orders out until 2010. They are expecting great numbers in this quarter. Thursday the stock hit a new 52-week low at $12.27. A level that hasn’t been seen since February of 2006.
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I don’t consider too many stocks to be a safe investment the way the markets have been moving. Monday morning the DOW opened at 9,141.01 and the intra-day low on Thursday was 7,979.60, but then closed Thursday at 8,835.25.
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The safest investment right now might be not investing.

For those who believe in alternative energy and expect big things from the industry may have to hold on a little longer. Throughout this week T. Boone Pickens has been going around speaking at events as well as being interviewed on CNBC on Wednesday saying that because of the credit crunch, his big plans for huge wind farms will be delayed.
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The financing just isn’t there and with falling prices natural gas that are used in power plants as well as oil prices hitting levels that haven’t been seen in over a year and a half are making his projects less economical.
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As I’ve writen before here on this blog, Pickens started a campaign to help the U.S. reduce their need for foreign oil. The plan is for major investment in the wind energy and the conversion of natural gas for vehicles
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He has said that this is just a temporary setback due to the financing of the project. When he spoke with the New York Times he was quoted in saying. “When we were looking at the project, we felt like we could do it with 30 percent equity and 70 percent debt.” The 70 percent debt is where we’re having a little slowdown.”
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Mesa Power, a company that he founded was given the job to oversee the massive wind farm in Texas that would be able to power over 1.3 million homes. The company has placed the orders for the first phase of the project. A total of 667 turbines from General Electric will be able to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity that will power more than 300,000 average homes.
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Originally that part of the project was to go online in early 2011.
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This is just part of what we’ll see for the next several months with the condition of the credit crisis. So buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.