There's a buzz around the new Spread Pricing Liquidity Act that was introduced to Congress last week by Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ).  Essentially, the act allows public companies that have a public float of $500 million or less and an average trading volume of less than 500,000 shares may have their shares quoted and traded in increments of $0.05 or $0.10, depending on average trading price.  According to Rep. Schweikert's press release, "[t]he bill is in  response to overwhelming evidence that wider ticks for small-cap companies will stimulate liquidity, encourage capital formation, and grow jobs. The SEC has been inactive on this issue."

Dan Primack, of Fortune's Term Sheet blog, reported on the bill and indicated that the change could "affect more than 3,000 companies currently listed on the NASDAQ and NYSE, with hopes that the wider 'ticks' would encourage coverage that has grown progressively sparse since 'decimalization' was introduced in 2001."

Felix Salmon of SeekingAlpha has mixed views on the Act.  He points out moving to a quote in increments of $0.05 and $0.10 will be to the detriment of small investors and to the benefit of the brokerage houses.  He also points out that there is no guarantee that the profits generated by the brokerage houses will be reinvested into deeper coverage of small-cap companies.

In my opinion. I think the bill is an interesting step to address one of the many issues confronting small-cap stocks.  I don't believe this bill is a panacea, but it seems like it would encourage brokerages to undertake research on smaller public companies.  This in turn could help pave the way for more, and more successful, initial public offerings of smaller companies.

Links:
Text of HR 1952:  http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1952/text
Rep. Schweikert's press release:  http://schweikert.house.gov/press-releases/rep-schweikert-introduces-tick-size-bill/
Dan Primack's article: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/13/small-cap-stocks-decimalization/
Felix Salmon's article:  http://seekingalpha.com/article/1443041-why-dedecimalization-is-a-bad-idea

Reuters recently had an interesting analysis on knowing when to sell tech stocks.  In "Analysis: For tech investors, it's hard to know when to bolt" the article identifies a couple of signs of when it might be time to consider selling shares in a tech company:

• It "makes acquisitions outside of its main area of expertise to move into new product lines."
• The company experiences "a succession of management changes"
• It has a successful core business that begins to look tired.

It's an interesting article and worth a read.

Link:  
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/27/us-investing-tech-idUSBRE8BQ0HG20121227