Among the 55 stocks that trade a total daily dollar volume of $20 to $30 million (as compared to roughly $40 billion on the NASDAQ!) are highly reputable companies such as Adidas AG (OTCQX: ADDYY), Air France KLM (OTCQX: AFLYY), and Benetton Group SPA (OTCQX: BNGPY) and Roche Hldg Ltd (OTCQX: RHHBY) who choose to trade their American Depository Receipts (ADRs) on the OTCQX because it's cheaper for them to avoid large IPO listing fees on major exchanges.

The benefits of ADR's are that they enable US investors to purchase shares of international companies without undertaking border costs and collect USD dividends, although the majority of investors choose to invest in more actively traded ADR's, namely on the more reputable NYSE market. Companies like AMERICA MOVIL SAB DE CV (NYSE: AMX) (average daily volume of 5 million), Nokia Corp (NYSE: NOK) (14 million), BHP BILLITON LTD (NYSE: BHP) (6 million), BP PLC (NYSE: BP) (5 million), and COMPANHIA VALE DO RIO DOCE (NYSE: RIO) (33 million).

Therefore, in order to differentiate highly regarded ADR's and other credible companies from OTCBB and Pink Sheet stocks, the OTCQX was formed. Their tiered concept divides Pink Sheets into understandable categories for the average investor, with the OTCQX being the safest transparent investment vehicle of all. "The goal is to make the market more informed, and with that, hopefully, better companies will take advantage of it and investors will be able to more easily avoid the worst ones", said Cromwell Coulson, the Chairman and CEO of Pink Sheets, in an interview last year.

Unfortunately, the 'worst ones' are also available for purchase.