[smallgovt]

> I don't have the numbers offhand, but I would wager a large sum that companies in trouble doing reverse splits just to meet listing requirements almost always continue tumbling downwards.

If you believe markets are even slightly efficient, you'd lose this wager. Companies announce reverse splits before they happen. Therefore, any predictable price depression will be priced in before the split.

Put another way, your hypothesis is simple and easily testable. Because it's so simple, even if it held true at some point in the past, it would no longer be true because a hedge fund or counter party would have done the work to price it in pre-split.