The Short List for July 2004. See the main page for any updates to the disclaimer and more-recent Short List entries. See the old crap page for less recent Short List entries.
The following stocks are being promoted by spammers. It is my suspicion that the usual reason for spams advertising a particular company's stock is to run a pump-and-dump scheme; they may also do it with companies they control in order to take advantage of a temporary spike in market value to acquire other companies in exchange for stock that then plummets back to the usual value of ten quintillion shares per penny.
My recommendation on all of these is to avoid 'em like the plague. If you've already got stock in 'em, sell it; if you've got stock options, selling them short apparently pisses off the spammers. And is liable to be profitable when the price crashes through the floor.
GREAT BIG CAVEATS:
I am not an investment counselor.
I would personally benefit from seeing stock spams trigger price crashes,
as I believe that would probably reduce the amount of spam I receive over
the long run.
I don't own or trade stocks.
Pump-and-dump is not the only possible reason for a stock spam. If spamming
LOWERS the value of a stock, it may be seen as beneficial for individuals to
tout companies that their competitors own, for example.
My advice comes with NO WARRANTEE WHATSOEVER. If you don't like that, don't
take it.
While I am quite capable of predicting the future, any action based on accurate
foreknowledge CHANGES the future. That being the case, forward-looking
statements can only be relied upon to be true if nobody notices them.
My magic haemhorroids contributed to the analysis of these stocks. Employees
are advised to wash their hands after handling this webpage.
Anyhow, without further ado nor subtracto, here is July's Short List.
AGEL.OB (2003 Sep 28 - 2004 July 3rd) - Only one spam this month for "AngelCiti Entertainment Inc.". Complete with a sample disclaimer carrying slots for the touter to stick the SEC-required disclosures. If their online poker is as well-written as their email, expect to see them die in a hail of lawsuits after an aspiring script kiddie empties all their users' bank accounts.
OTCBB:CGPA (2004 July 1) - College Partnership, Inc., a "leading provider of college planning products and services". From the looks of it, the author of this $500 spam run might need their product in eight years or so, presupposing that they survive middle and high school.
COHQ (2004 July 18) - CorpHQ. Who wouldn't buy stock in a company
described using the phrase "Using a 'virtual' variation of a business
incubator process" and which develops "business relationships with
non-subsidiary companies that have demonstrated synergies with our
core businesses"? It's apparently due to explode on the 19th.
On the 19th, the primary explosion seemed to be at CorpHQ HQ, where
the president of the company announced that they don't approve of
unsolicited emails and faxes, that the spam run was done without the
knowledge and consent of the company, and that the spam
should not be considered reliable or accurate.
Pink Sheets:CSJJ and BIOMED (2004 July 1-2) - Failed runner-up to JVGI for sheer copiousness.
GDNO (2004 June 29 - Aug 1) - "Golden Opportunity Resources, Inc.".
According to the text, this one only cost the
pump-and-dumper $6500. It also highlights a Successful Prediction from
the spammer (who seems to be the same one who later switched to JVGI) that
PRVH would do well. One wonders if this is a fabrication, as I didn't
get any similar spam for PRVH.
Price on 2004 Jul 7: 0.39, with a speculative near term target of 1.62,
for only $6500.
IJMS (2004 April 8 - 2004 July 13)
Touted in July at fifteen cents a share, IJMS
supposedly had a near-term target of 65 cents and a long-term of 75.
As of 2004 July 20th, it appears that they may have screwed up on the
placement of the decimal point, as IJMS closed at 5.5 cents.
This difficulty with decimals appears to be a long-running feature of
this particular stock - while going through an old archive, I found that
back in April it was 37 cents a share, and touted as likely to hit $1.65.
JVGI (around 2004 July 5th - 13th) - "Java Group International". According to the text in the spam, someone (presumably a major stakeholder) paid $16,500 to have me flooded with ads for the damn thing. It must also be noted that I'm receiving about five copies a day as of this writing; it wouldn't surprise me unduly to learn that the asshole who funded the spamming run is being billed per million mails sent and isn't aware that the number of unique recipients is rather lower than that. (sample spam). Or perhaps they feel that flooding all the recipients will give them the impression that the "VERY large promotional campaign" they promise is in fact Very Large.
NECX (2004 July 2 - 2004 July 16) - "Nathaniel
Energy". Its product? The "Thermal Combustor". Its spam? Contains "F0rward
l00king sta-tements". Its finances? In debt since its inception and in
litigation to boot. Its gas processing plant? Just a minor fire, all
put out now, honest. Its sales? The company that was going to buy the
two Thermal Combustors it had built changed its mind, and they're now
looking for homes for the things.
The disclaimer, as of the 16th, also decrees that The Growth St0ck Report
was paid $13,000 for this spam run, and that they have "No relationship
with TRPL, BSIO, or SYMBA". What are those? Well, apparently they used
Yahoo to track down some minicompanies that had recently done well.
OTCBB: NIHK (2004 July 27 - 29) - Nighthawk Systems, nc.
PRMN (2004 July 21) - for seven thousand dollars, we are told that "Pearl Asian Mining Industries" has bought a gold claim in British Columbia. The former owner is quoted as saying "I think of it as 'Treasure Island' because of the many rich mineral deposits.", though apparently these deposits weren't rich enough to justify *keeping* 'Treasure Island'...
TDCP (2004 July 7) - The Multux Trend Report,
with a subtitle of "Armed Forces Applications", is promoting "3D Icon
Corporation". Writing and sending the spam apparently cost $30,000.
So what are these "Armed Forces Applications"? Holographic communications.
That being the case, it logically follows that their primary area of
research is... analysing the wireless communications marketplace. Oh,
and while they were at it they're planning to get around to developing
something that actually uses holography sometime this year, after only
having been in business since 1995...
Winning quote: "We have deliberately structured the company to exploit
the vision of the founder, Martin Keating.".
Greppage turns up his biopuffs. In 1991, his vision enabled him to
predict the Oklahoma City bombing in great detail (down to naming the
bomber McVey.) in his novel. Which was published only a year after
the bombing. Ah, Keating...
XLPI (June 23 - July 19, 2004) Why do cheesy
companies like
to call themselves things like "Xcelplus International"? Under the name
"The PennyStock Report", the spammer announces that the current price is
$1.50 and they expect that, in 3-5 days, it will be $2.35 or so. And $2.8
in ten days. Yadda. I suspect they'll do as well as ARMM did. Which,
at a claimed price of $8K for this spam run, is Really Not Worth It.
On the 13th, a $9000 mailing announces a pending explosion. This time
to $2.15-$2.39, and $2.92 in ten days. The previous explosion's progress
is shown... by the fact that they announce a trading price of $1.45.
On July 13, with four of the five days of their prediction to go, the
stock has skyrocketed to $1.47. And this spam adds the announcement that
"THERE IS BIG PR CAMPAIGN for XLPI STARTING on June 23rd"...
On July 18th... the 3-5 day forecast is down to a max of $2.35,
and the current price is supposedly $1.50. And they've got big news:
they have two potential customers.