Auric - I read your post and the link. If you think that the article you linked (about how sleazy brokers and investment bankers use manipulative techniques to bilk the public) applies to Ashton, then you need to do a lot more thinking - maybe you should reread the article yourself - then again, any article which concludes in its opening sentences that every small cap stock which has a sharp upward price spike is automatically spiking because of market manipulation is predicated on a blatantly false and cynical presumption that unfairly sweeps all situations within the same analysis. So re-reading may not help - although applying some critical thinking to determine if Ashton really fits the model cited in the article would certainly go a long way to demonstrating how full of it you are when it comes to Ashton.
Here are just a few compelling contrary indicators to plug into your analysis:
1. The SEC approval and the fact that VTS is about to be introduced on a national stock and options exchange. This reflects a high level of legitimacy upon the company's trading system, and is contrary to the phony or thin business typically standing behind a pure pump and dump stock (like the mining stocks used as examples in the article).
2. The qualifications and experience of the principals of ATG. These individuals have forgotten more than you will ever know about the securities trading business and deserve your respect, not your defamation.
3. The fact that ATG has NOT been self-promoting. Indeed, ATG has disappointed some of its shareholders by not hyping more than it does. I personally favor that approach, but it indeniable and the direct opposite of pump and dump stocks. Their "paid advertising" occurred a long time ago, and represents a normal or even minimal (and certainly NOT abnormally high) amount of PR for a small company. Not at all like the campaign your article talks about.
4. The consistent high volume that the stock has been trading belies the notion of a price run up on relatively low volume, which is the model cited in the article - the recent run up, from its beginning in late March, has been on consistently high volumes -- not a thinly traded run up leading to a high volume distribution phase and then a crash. More like a steadily high volume trading pattern with occasional major (very very high) volume days that have gone in both directions.
In short, your article describes a situation that may fit many of the bills First United (and many other similar high pressure brokerage operations) were (or still are) involved in, but it has nothing to do with Ashton. The article is interesting reading, if not a little dogmatic in the broad brush it uses, but is completely inapposite (as we say in the law).
You need to stop applying the same analysis to every situation just because it looks similar to or fits a pattern that you've seen before. You seem to pride yourself on having exposed (and made money shorting) these types of companies. I think you are dead wrong here, and you need to pay more attention to the facts, and to the substance (and not just the superficial appearance) of things, or you are going to lose your shirt. Looking closely and fairly at the history of this company and at its recent accomplishments, you have to be in denial not to acknowledge a strong possibility that a freight train of good things is about to happen to them. You ignore such facts at your own peril.
And, by the way, it would probably be better to base your judgments on the facts, and not the other way around.
MST |
