Nasdaq's $1 Warning: Most Companies Stay Listed, Most Shares Fall

On May 28, 2025, Nasdaq told Opendoor (OPEN $1.90 -0.52%) that its shares had closed below $1.00 for 30 business days in a row. The company did what most companies in that position do: it called a special meeting to ask shareholders for permission to do a reverse split. Then the stock ran. Opendoor closed at $1.00 or more on 12 straight trading days from July 15 to July 30, Nasdaq closed the matter, and the board cancelled the meeting.

Opendoor is the story everyone remembers, but it isn't the typical one. We followed every Nasdaq company that disclosed its first minimum bid price notice in the first half of 2025, 145 of them, to October 26, 2026. Most are still listed. Most did a reverse split to get there. And for most of the people who held the stock on the day the letter was disclosed, the shares are worth less now.

The short answer

• 108 of the 145 companies (74.5%) are still listed on a US exchange 16 to 22 months after the letter. 78 trade at $1 or more, and 30 are back under $1.
• 37 are gone: 19 were delisted, suspended or deregistered, 11 were acquired, and 7 went bankrupt.
• 85 (58.6%) did a reverse split, typically 1-for-20, and the median company did it 258 days after disclosing the letter, well into the second 180-day period. 14 did more than one.
• 59 of 126 (46.8%) got back above $1 on their own for ten straight closes before any reverse split, 46 of them within the first 180 days. 24 of those 59 later started the process over with a new letter.
• The price on the day of the letter mattered most. Under $0.50, 4 of 23 recovered without a split and 8 were delisted or bankrupt by October 2026. At $0.80 or more, 18 of 30 recovered and 2 were gone.
• A split didn't always end the problem. At least 13 of the 85 companies that split fell back below $1 long enough to start the process again.
• For shareholders, the typical outcome was a loss. Among companies still listed, the median stock was down 47.3% from the close on the day the letter was disclosed, against a 32.4% gain for the S&P 500 over the same windows. Companies that did a reverse split were down a median 83.0%.

How the $1 rule works

Nasdaq requires a listed stock to close with a bid of at least $1.00. When the closing bid has been below that for 30 consecutive business days, Nasdaq sends a deficiency letter, and the company has four business days to disclose it, usually in an 8-K under Item 3.01. The letter starts a compliance period of 180 calendar days. To regain compliance, the stock must close at $1.00 or more for at least 10 consecutive business days, and Nasdaq's staff can ask for up to 20.

A company that hasn't recovered after 180 days can get a second 180 days if it meets the other initial listing standards for the Nasdaq Capital Market, moving there if necessary, and tells Nasdaq it will cure the deficiency with a reverse split if needed. After that comes a delisting determination, which the company can appeal to a Hearings Panel.

Two changes approved by the SEC on January 17, 2025, made the end of that road shorter, and the companies in this study went through the process under them:

• No stay during the appeal. A company that used both 180-day periods and still failed is suspended from Nasdaq while its appeal is heard, so its shares trade over the counter in the meantime. The panel can still grant up to 180 more days.
• No compliance period after a recent split. A company that falls below $1 within a year of a reverse split gets no compliance period at all and goes straight to a delisting determination. The same already applied to companies whose reverse splits over the prior two years add up to 250 to 1 or more.

A separate rule applies at the bottom: a stock that closes at $0.10 or less for ten consecutive trading days during a compliance period gets a delisting determination immediately.

Where the 145 companies stood in October 2026

Three in four companies are still listed, which sounds better than it is. Of the 30 still listed but trading under $1, 20 are on their second trip through the process: since the first letter they have received a new one, or an extension or delisting decision that could only follow a new one. Blink Charging (BLNK $0.41 +0.83%) is one: it got its first letter in May 2025, was back above $1 by September, received a new letter in January 2026, and in July was granted a second 180 days, until January 25, 2027, after telling Nasdaq it would do a reverse split if necessary. It closed at $0.38 on October 26.

The 19 delisted companies include Stardust Power, which did a 1-for-10 reverse split in September 2025, fell below $1 again, and then closed at $0.10 or less for ten trading days in October 2026. Nasdaq said it would suspend its shares on October 23, and under the January 2025 rule a hearing request doesn't stop a suspension.

Getting back above $1 without a split

Some companies don't need to do anything. Of the 126 companies with price history in our data, 59 (46.8%) closed at $1.00 or more on ten straight trading days before doing any reverse split. The median company got there 102 days after the letter, and 46 of the 59 did it inside the first 180 days. 44 of them never split at all.

Recovering didn't always last. 24 of the 59 later started the process over with a new letter, and 22 are back under $1 today.

The best predictor of a recovery was the price when the letter arrived. A stock at $0.85 needs an 18% rise to clear $1; a stock at $0.30 needs to more than triple.

The median stock closed at $0.68 on the day its letter was disclosed.

The reverse split

85 of the 145 companies (58.6%) did at least one reverse split after the letter. Most waited. Only 31 split within the first 180 days; 45 split between day 181 and day 360, which is when the second compliance period runs and when Nasdaq expects the split it was promised.

The median first split was 1-for-20. The ratio is usually chosen with room to spare, because a split that lands the stock at $1.10 can be undone by a few bad weeks.

Some companies split again and again. 14 did more than one reverse split after the letter and 3 did at least three. Vivakor did a 1-for-200 split in March 2026, a 1-for-20 in July and a 1-for-15 in October, so 60,000 shares from before March are now one. Its stock closed at $1.32 on October 26, on a split-adjusted basis a tiny fraction of the $0.88 it traded at when its letter was disclosed in March 2025.

A split also doesn't fix whatever pushed the stock under $1. At least 13 of the 85 companies that split fell back below $1 long enough to start the process again. Under the January 2025 rule, a company that falls under $1 again within a year of its split gets no new compliance period, only a delisting determination.

The split worked best when something else changed too. Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR $39.18 +1.63%) got its letter in April 2025 at $0.55, did a 1-for-15 split in June, and closed at $37.45 on October 26, 2026, equivalent to about $2.50 per share from before the split.

What happened to the shares

For anyone who held the stock, the more useful question is what the shares did. We measured the change from the close on the day each company disclosed its letter to its latest close in October 2026, adjusted for splits, for the 107 still-listed companies with a price on both dates.

• All still listed: median -47.3%. 36 of 107 are higher than on the day of the letter, 18 more than doubled, and 21 lost 90% or more.
• Companies that did a reverse split: median -83.0%, and 9 of 64 are higher.
• Companies that didn't: median +41.2%, and 27 of 43 are higher.

The gap between the last two isn't evidence that reverse splits destroy value. It's the other way around: the companies whose stock recovered on its own never needed a split, so the split marks the companies that didn't recover. What the numbers do show is that the typical stock kept falling after the letter. And these figures leave out the 37 companies no longer listed: the 18 delisted or bankrupt ones with prices in our data lost a median 97.7% by their last close.

Two problems at once

A bid-price letter often comes with company. 58 of the 145 companies also received a notice for another listing rule at some point in 2025 or 2026, most often minimum stockholders' equity (22 companies) or a late filing (16). 16 of those 58 (27.6%) were delisted or went bankrupt, against 10 of the 87 (11.5%) that only had the price problem.

Drug developers were the largest group: 61 of the 145 companies (42.1%) are classified by the SEC as pharmaceutical preparations or biological products. They were also the largest group in our study of going-concern warnings. Small drug developers usually pay for their trials by selling new shares, which keeps adding to the share count while they wait for results.

The letters themselves tend to arrive quietly. In our study of 8-K timing, 38.6% of listing deficiency notices went public on a Friday after 4 p.m.

How to check a company

• Find the letter. The company's 8-K under Item 3.01 gives the date of the letter and the deadline. On Equibles, a company's filings page lists its 8-Ks with their item numbers, for example Blink Charging's.
• Read the second notice closely. A grant of a second 180-day period means the company has told Nasdaq it will do a reverse split if it needs to.
• Look for a split proposal. A proxy statement asking shareholders to approve a reverse split, often with a wide range of ratios, is the usual next step. Opendoor's was filed in June 2025.
• Check the last split. A company that did a reverse split in the past year, or splits adding up to 250 to 1 or more over two years, gets no compliance period if it falls below $1 again.
• Look for a second deficiency. A notice for stockholders' equity or market value on top of the bid price is the combination that most often ended in delisting.

How we built this

• Notices: every 8-K with Item 3.01 filed from January 2025 to October 2026, found through EDGAR full-text search (2,721 filings), read and sorted by the listing rule each one cites and by type: deficiency, delisting step, regained compliance or transfer.
• The 145 companies: Nasdaq-listed companies whose first bid-price 8-K in that period was filed between January 1 and June 30, 2025, with no bid-price Item 3.01 8-K since June 1, 2024. We read every notice and removed 11 that weren't a first letter: extensions, hearing panel decisions, a bankruptcy notice, and 4 companies that got no compliance period at all because of earlier reverse splits.
• Status on October 26, 2026: listed if the SEC's company ticker file places the company on Nasdaq, the NYSE or NYSE American, except Stardust Power, which Nasdaq said it would suspend on October 23 while the file still showed it on Nasdaq. Bankruptcy means an 8-K under Item 1.03 and no listing; acquired means a completed merger (Item 2.01 with Item 5.01 or 3.03, or a completed tender offer). A merger whose completion 8-K came within ten days after Nasdaq's Form 25 counts as acquired, since Nasdaq files the form at closing. Everything else that left an exchange counts as delisted, suspended or deregistered.
• A second trip: a later notice counts as a new start if it is a new 30-day letter, or a second-period grant or delisting decision dated too late to belong to the first letter.
• Reverse splits: our split records, plus splits reported in the companies' own 8-Ks (Items 5.03, 3.03 and 5.07) that our records lacked, five in all. We checked the ratios we name against the companies' filings.
• Back above $1: ten consecutive closes at $1.00 or more on the price as it actually traded, using daily closes for the 126 companies with price history in our data.
• Share price change: from the close on the day the 8-K was filed to the latest close between October 20 and 26, 2026, on a split-adjusted basis, against SPY over the same dates.
• Another listing rule: any Item 3.01 8-K in 2025 or 2026 citing stockholders' equity, market value, a late filing, the annual meeting, or board and audit committee requirements.
• Industry: the SEC industry codes 2834 (pharmaceutical preparations) and 2836 (biological products).

Limitations

• Nasdaq measures the closing bid; we used closing prices, and the staff can require up to 20 days rather than 10. A few of the recoveries we count may not have satisfied Nasdaq.
• 19 companies have no price history in our data, 18 of them now acquired, bankrupt or delisted. The recovery figures therefore lean toward companies that survived.
• The share price figures cover only companies still listed. Including the delisted and bankrupt ones would make them worse.
• The comparison between companies that split and those that didn't is a comparison of different kinds of company, not the effect of the split.
• The study covers first letters only. Companies already on a second or third trip through the process in early 2025 aren't in it, and they are likely to do worse.
• The follow-up runs 16 to 22 months, so some of the 30 companies still listed under $1 haven't reached the end of the process.

Conclusion

A Nasdaq bid-price letter is not a death sentence: three in four companies that got one in early 2025 were still listed in October 2026, and nearly half got back above $1 at least once without a reverse split. But the way most of them stayed listed was a reverse split, usually at the last moment, and for shareholders the letter was more often a warning than a bottom. The price on the day of the letter is the first number to look at. Under 50 cents, only 4 of 23 companies recovered on their own and a third were gone by October 2026.

Sources

• Nasdaq Listing Rules 5550(a)(2) and 5450(a)(1) (minimum bid price), 5810(c)(3)(A) (compliance periods) and 5815 (hearings).
• SEC Release No. 34-102245, order approving File No. SR-NASDAQ-2024-045, January 17, 2025.
• Opendoor Technologies: 8-K filed May 30, 2025 (0001801169-25-000042); proxy supplement filed July 28, 2025 (0001140361-25-027584); 8-K filed August 1, 2025 (0001801169-25-000069).
• Blink Charging: 8-Ks filed May 13, 2025 (0001641172-25-009987), September 11, 2025 (0001641172-25-027095), January 30, 2026 (0001493152-26-004537) and July 28, 2026 (0001493152-26-034964).
• Nektar Therapeutics: 8-Ks filed April 4, 2025 (0001213900-25-029002) and June 6, 2025 (0001213900-25-052141).
• Vivakor: 8-Ks filed March 27, 2026 (0001829126-26-002808), July 16, 2026 (0001829126-26-007621) and October 6, 2026 (0001829126-26-010815).
• Stardust Power: 8-Ks filed March 24, 2025 (0001641172-25-000327) and October 19, 2026 (0001493152-26-047607).
• EDGAR full-text search, the SEC submissions API and the SEC company ticker and exchange file (company_tickers_exchange.json).

This study describes public filings and market prices. It is not investment advice.