Anyone have any experience trading OTC stocks like this? Even after going up almost 400%, the market cap is only 9m.

1. Under what circumstances can an OTC stock enter an exchange and could that apply to this stock?

2. The liquidity probably makes PDEX feel like AAPL. How are you going to exit your position without dropping the share price 10%+?

I mainly invest in OTC stocks.

1) They can apply for an uplisting to another exchange, however it would increase their cost base. Based on several cases I have seen over the last years (both uplisting and delisting), the annual costs to meet all requirements of being listed on a good exchange (e.g. NASDAQ) are between $0.5-1.0m annually.

2) It is my experience that liquidity comes with performance. Thus if they post a couple more good quarters that will increase liquidity. If you have to make an emergency sale, the low liquidity will be painfull. On the other hand, if the company performs well the scarcity can also result in higher trading prices. So the low liquidity works both ways.

Thanks for posting Maarten. The volume on FTLF is kinda scary low imo--3000 shares per day. Yikes. I'd be worried liquidity---definitely not a stock you want to buy or sell with a market order. My previous experience with low volume / OTC stocks like this was that it took me days to get a limit trade executed.

Looks like someone drove the price up to $11 today by purchasing just a few thousand shares---

Also, it is a bit hard for me to read much into the CEO's purchase---he purchased those shares at a fair discount to the market ($8.50 vs $9.25 on 7/10).

I have a hard time seeing how an ecommerce store and Amazon are going to drive sales. The supplement market appears to me to be saturated with a myriad of companies selling product that are hard to differentiate---is there anything else FitLife is doing to promote their brand differentiate themselves from everyone else in that market.

Thanks again for posting

I live in Jamaica, kingston & have pretty much all my money in a Unit Trust which is +57% year to date, gotta love that Jamaican stock market .

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...forming-market

Talk about printing money, hopefully it stays this way for the next 10 years so i can retire at 40.

https://twitter.com/CentralBankJA/st...77984360472581

I would indeed never use a market order on illiquid stocks like this. The CEO purchased the shares at a discount to the market, he could probably negotiate that as there was not enough liquidity for the seller to dispose his full position at $9.25. I still see this purchase as an indication that the shares are worth significantly more than $8.50 (why would he purchase the shares otherwise?).

I fully agree that it is a very competitive business with little differentation in products. The same is true for many other retail / consumer companies. Some have the capabilities to make a good profit in this competitive environment. I don't have insight what Fitlife Brands does better than competitors in terms of marketing. They have tight control on expenses and most products / brands have been in the market for quite some time. Hence they have a large base of loyal customers requiring less marketing spend. With nutritional products (based on asking around) people tend to stick with products if they are happy with it.

REPOST since I erroneously put this in the trading thread.


I just started investing last month, just posting my positions here to see how dumb money I might be, any criticism would be nice.


Price I bought in at with percentage of portfolio in parentheses:


BABA@159.75 (5.4%)

CLF @ 10.39 (3.8%)

EMN@ 78.19 (5.6%)

CAT @134.86 (5.6%)

VBTLX @ 10.97 (21.82%)

VMFXX (50.91%)

CASH (6.7%)



I did one day trade buying RAD and selling it the next day on hour old news about them teaming up with Amazon for in store pickups. I made 9% ROI on that. The price dropped about 7% instantly on next day opening and I sold within 13 minutes of market open. I read something later about how the only people trading in the first hour are either really smart or really dumb. I sold RAD near the low of the day. I also bought a utilities ETF near an all time high and sold it the next day near break even. I had no real reason to buy it other that to add to diversity to my portfolio and I realized that and sold.


I am mostly in cash because I don't know what to look for when buying yet. I am mostly just poaching my picks from famous investors like Ray Dalio, Michael Burry, and Joel Greenblatt and then waiting to buy on a down day. I'm using barcharts.com and Yahoo finance to look at fundamentals and volume.

If you dont want to purely index, then look for dividends imo.

Some examples - DLR, O, WELL, NLY, SPH, OXY, T, FUN, BIP, IBM, MO

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/c...-yield-history

Pick a stock and check consistency of payouts over time. Keep in mind that the total US stock market index pays ~1.8% at the moment.


Also, get in the habit of reading seeking alpha.

Slater, you're going to be paying a lot of taxes if that's in a taxable account (bonds, high dividends with the exception of BABA). Also, not sure why you have 50% of your portfolio in vanguard fed money market and also have cash, unless that money market allocation is your sweep account.

And the famed investors you're copying aren't going to advertise their position until they've already accumulated, and will sell before you even know about it.

If you're interested in building a portfolio of individual stocks I read a good book awhile ago "Get Rich With Dividends: a Proven System for Earning Double digit Returns" by Lichtenfeld. I think he did a lot of backtesting. Some key notes,

Need a dividend payout ratio of 75% or lower. If payout ratio increases significantly for FCF that's a red flag. Need a minimum 10% dividend growth rate. Yield should be 1.5 to 2 times greater that the S&P 500 index yield and also above inflation.

Basically, if you are going after a good deal on yield on big-caps you are prob best off being contrarian and getting it at a low PE in a company semi-crisis like JNJ had recently with the talc powder or whatever or in a bear market. INTC for no good reason had a PE in the teens a year or so ago and 4%+ div yield. I try to find a lot of div yield in small-caps with good fundamentals. Even better yield and valuation. Some I have are BGSF TGLS PETS MVO and a ETF PFN

What makes you think your results will be better 1) doing what your doing instead of 2) indexing or 3) picking some value/momentum/quality funds or even 4) doing the opposite of what you think you should do?

Given that you sold something because it was at an all-time high and was diversifying your portfolio, there is a decent chance that 4) is better than 1).

Not really sure why you think that waiting to buy on a down day will improve your results, but it has never improved anyone's results. A similar strategy in poker would be to fold preflop if one or both of your cards have black suits.

If you really like the idea of copying successful investors, then you should be learning their techniques/processes and copying those.

10% growth per year at 3.5-4% yield sounds like alot. Plenty of great dividend plays dont meet that criteria.

I wouldn't be comfortable with such small caps, but JNJ I'll be buying up if it drops enough. Not a terrible buy atm either.

You like taxes? Fairly sure that dividend stocks offer absolutely no additional total return over value stocks.

Some backtests will prove otherwise and with less risk. In a roth it doesn't matter plus everyone's situation is different.

I'm pretty sure that the newest research shows otherwise. By "pretty sure," I mean "you won't find any research showing otherwise."

I love the "everyone's situation is different" line. Perhaps he doesn't like money. His situation would indeed be different if this were the case.

I don't recall anyone claiming whether it has outperformed a non-value index...

Wait, why did you even post the dividend aristocrats at all?!? Didn't notice that was your choice of representative for a high dividend fund. It is absolutely not a high dividend index. It doesn't even try to resemble a high dividend index. It has as much resemblence to a high dividend index as a grilled cheese sandwich.

Cut parallel or on the diagonal?

Diagonal cut with ripe tomato as is standard.

Can you link to some of that "newest research" showing value focused > dividend focused. Thanks in advance.

I can. Probably won't bother to.

Oh great Lord Brian, please find favor in your eyes and bestow your gracious countenance upon this lowly serf. Link so we may gaze upon thy splendor.


Is there anyone on this site that can hold back from being a douchebag for an extended period of time? Link to the studies you mentioned as you berated someone else or STFU.

I assume that you all have access to the internet and can read. If I were a bastard, I'd assume that you weren't capable. Maybe try starting on Google or ssrn. Maybe start on the AQR website; plenty of research there.

You shouldn't trust me to curate things for you. If you did, you might not notice that I posted a misleading graph using Ned Davis' old (and incorrect) methodology, as was done above.

I've never regularly stuck with SA due to hating the UI. Do you mainly follow stocks specifically or certain posters content, ala twitter etc?