NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Last September, the Nasdaq temporarily halted its policy of delisting companies whose stocks had fallen below a dollar a share. The intent was to provide some stability to markets (and companies) shaken by the events of Sept. 11.

At the time, hundreds of formerly high-flying Nasdaq names were trading under a buck -- including a half dozen in the once glamorous Nasdaq 100 index.

But the moratorium came to an end in January -- and the clock is once again ticking for Nasdaq's penny stocks.

Nasdaq, you see, sends a delisting warning to companies if their stock falls below a dollar for more than 30 days in a row. If they can't keep the price above $1 for more than 10 straight days, they get banished to the ignominy of the Over the Counter Bulletin Board or the Pink Sheets, where no sensible investors will ever touch the shares again.

Companies officially get 90 days to meet the requirements. But they can stall in many ways, appealing the process or shuffling over to the Nasdaq Small Cap Market. Some companies may successfully make use of the extra time.

But for many more, such tactics merely delay the inevitable.

Nasdaq penny stocks in danger       Cooper Mountain Networks: 96 cents Divine, inc: 52 cents Internet Capital Group: 65 cents Metromedia Fiber: 11 cents PeoplePC: 13 cents PurchasePro: 79 cents Scient: 11 cents Verticalnet: 70 cents

With the Nasdaq up some 30 percent from its September lows, there are fewer companies facing the prospect of delisting today then there were when the moratorium went into effect. And the Nasdaq no longer faces the prospect -- at least for the moment -- of having to send delisting notices to Nasdaq 100 members. (Of course, that's because some of them went bankrupt and others were booted off the list as part of the index's annual rebalancing; it is, after all, an index based on market cap and it's hard to have much of a market cap if your stock is under a buck.)

Still, it's striking how many of the Nasdaq's formerly hot stocks are trading under a buck today. Some of the better known names: Metromedia Fiber Networks; Copper Mountain Networks; B2B players PurchasePro and Verticalnet; cheap PC/internet access seller PeoplePC; consultancy Scient; internet, er, "incubators" Internet Capital Group and divine, inc. (Oh, sorry -- divine, formerly divine interventures, no longer wants to be called an incubator; it now describes itself as a company that "extends business systems beyond the edge of the enterprise throughout the entire value chain." Whatever that means.)

Tick, Tock. Tick, Tock.

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