I don't buy pennies anymore. So it's not a big deal to me. I have the 3 stocks right now. Merrill had strict rules for customer protection. Some non-otc stocks could not be traded for whatever reason and Merrill would not allow you to buy or sell large chunks either. Said it would" impact market"

"According to the SEC's 2016 white paper, retired, low income and less-educated investors fared the worst with penny stocks. The agency analyzed 1.8 million trades by 200,000 investors, finding that the typical return is "severely negative.""

Lots of people can a test to this.