Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS:ASTID) Stumbles Closer To A Nickel

Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS:ASTI) is descending down the charts at an undiminished pace, and it doesn’t seem that this state of developments of events will change any time soon.

To elaborate – ASTI was stuck in relative obscurity for a long time, before deciding that it needed to perform a 1-for-20 reverse split. True, OTC Markets penny stock companies do that sort of thing all the time to increase liquidity and so on, so it is usually no reason for great alarm.

Except, in ASTI‘s case, it was, because the manner in which the whole affair was conducted was very suspicious indeed, as the split was performed without adjusting the number of authorized shares of the Company’s Common Stock. This sort of thing usually hints that dilution is on the way – and true to form, it came raining down on ASTI less than a week further down the line.

Unsurprisingly, investors were not thrilled by the way things unfolded after that – and it is easy to see why. After all, ASTI then proceeded to sell thousands of shares of preferred stock, worth millions of dollars, that could either be transformed into common stock at fixed prices of $0.05 or converted into common shares at a 30% to 40% discount of the current market price.

That sort of suspicious move pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the way ASTI does business, the company’s dubious nature and practices.

Still, further due diligence is encouraged, because it reveals many other red flags that investors should definitely watch out for, more than a few of which can be found in the following excerpt from its latest financial report:

• cash – $350 thousand
• total current assets – $9.7 million
• total current liabilities – $15.1 million
• quarterly revenues – $710 thousand
• quarterly net loss – $10.5 million

So, at the end of the day, what we have here is an OTC Markets company overburdened with debt that generates losses at a staggering rate. While it is technically true that ASTI has seems to have got its hands on some cash recently, it was only able to do so by drowning investor value in dilution – which seems to be a tactic it employs on a regular basis. Investors should definitely take note of these red flags and act accordingly, because, as due diligence reveals, there is a good reason for ASTI slipping below the dime mark.