There's always someone that lost their patience or may have bought a bundle sub penny and is cashing out enough to return all his initially invested money and still have a pile of 'FREE' stock left in his/her portfolio. I've done just that with American Airlines. I bought 3000 shares at 33 cents while near bankruptcy and when it recovered and hit a dollar I sold 1000 shares being left with 2000 shares of 'FREE' stock. In this way I protected my initial investment and still held 2000 shares of AA stock now worth about $70,000. All from a $1000 investment that I got back in it's entirety. This only works for those of us sore losers that are not too greedy and are happy to get what we get.