Publically Traded

There is a comic book/pop-culture/cigar store called Zaldiva, down in Florida, that is publilcally traded under the symbol ZLDV. Who would have thought that this type of store would be a publically owned company? Not me! It is an interesting idea, though.

Of course it's just a penny stock traded OTC. (That's over the counter, for you non-stock types. This is commonly where small businesses with penny stocks are traded, as opposed to the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq or American Stock Exchange.) Having been a stock broker in the late 1990's and early 2000's, I know that OTC stocks are really the smallest and riskiest kinds out there ususally. Often they are for companies that don't have good enough credit or are not large enough to make it to any of the other public trading floors. The Securities and Exchange commission says, "Penny stocks may trade infrequently, which means that it may be difficult to sell penny stock shares once you own them. Because it may be difficult to find quotations for certain penny stocks, they may be impossible to accurately price. Investors in penny stocks should be prepared for the possibility that they may lose their whole investment."

I assume this was the way they decided to fund the company - by selling shares to the public. I don't know that for sure, but it's my assumption. The shares seem to, asside from a initial spike and drop that often occurs when a new stock is made public, hold their small value. It's kind of an interesting way to fund a small business. I would think that doing this would also be difficult for a small business, since now the ownership is in the hands of several people, who can vote people in and out of control of the business as well as have control of the other decisions in the business. I would not recommend this as a way to fund a new comic book store personally, but who knows, it might work out well for this company.