Getting involved in penny stock trading means that a perspective investor must learn the lingo, or the common terms thrown about in the most popular chat rooms and forums sites on the internet. Here are the terms that are probably the most important:

Market Makers (MM): A brokerage or bank that maintains an ask or bid price, keeping the liquidity of a security intact.

Due Diligence (DD): Research! The research that you do before investing in a particular security.

The Spread: The difference between the ask and bid prices.

Press Release (PR): Communications put out by a company, usually hype that can drive the price per share or other news that can drop the share value.

Halted: When a stock is no longer actively trading on an exchange for any variety of reasons.

Reverse Split (RS): Reversing the shares outstanding to improve stock price. a 1-10 split means that a stock previously valued at 10 cents is now valued at 1 dollar.

PPS: Price per share.

Basher: Someone who visits internet message boards and posts disparaging remarks about a security in order to cause a fall in share price. AKA, a shorter. Opposite of a pumper.

You can look up more terms at the following online dictionaries for investors:

• InvestorWords.com - A comprehensive glossary containing more than 6,000 terms!
• Trading-Glossary.com - Another investor's dictionary offering a good collection of terms.
• About.com Financial Dictionary - A wealth of terms as well as other information.