Newbies Discover Penny Stocks and 1 Trillion Shares Get Traded

In New York, there’s Broadway, off Broadway, and off-off Broadway. A similar hierarchy exists in the modern equity market, and it’s in the third category of way-off-exchange trading where today’s retail speculator is really going to work.

While there have been many examples of volume explosions in low-priced NYSE and Nasdaq stocks in the last few months, a whole other ecosystem of speculation exists outside the regulatory reach of these venues -- and lately it’s been booming. Out past the broker-operated venues where Robinhood trades get executed, it’s lightly regulated quotation systems run by firms like OTC Markets, where more than 1 trillion shares in some of the riskiest companies changed hands last month.