The allure of penny stocks is twofold: First, it takes relatively little money for an investor to buy hundreds or thousands of shares, and second, small moves higher can translate into windfall profits.
The risk, of course, is that you're more likely to lose all of the money you invest in such stocks than you are to make a big score. Money-losing companies, fly-by-night operators, and pump-and-dump schemers litter the penny-stock universe. And it can be difficult to tell the few legitimate companies trading in that under-$5-a-share range from the rest.
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