Patchie, re spending time on penny stocks...
My first post on SI is about Borland software. I made good money trading them on the hunch their new product would be a hit. It was. I then because active on a thread called "The Picks". It was started by one of the first scam artists on SI-- a guy who proclaimed to know the inside scoop on things. One of his picks was supposed to be a "fully automated" solution to Y2K. I vehemently challenged him on this and exposed him as using multiple aliases to pump his stocks (confirmed by Brad, the owner of SI at the time). I thus became part of the first generation of "bashers".
Later I posted on "Stock Swap", started by a The Picks alumnus, Andrew Vance. His specialty was trading the semis for 10% swings, so that's what I did. But I also started to become cyber friends with other "bashers". There was no need to seek out these companies, you were drawn to them like everyone else because of the hype. As you know, a group of us used humor (sarcasm) to fight what we perceived as fraud. That group was called FBN (Fly-by-Night) Associates.
You guys make a big deal about hedge fund manipulation using toxic convertibles. We were exposing that years prior. Companies like Thomson-Kernaghan (Mark Valentine). Heck, I was sued by them (suit later dropped). I consider that leveraged shorting since you have the ability to cover using actual common stock.
"We" didn't search out companies. They just came to us the same way longs are attracted to them. They are great stories where you wonder, hey, could this really be true. It was a real-life mystery. Once you did your DD it quickly and often became apparent, no, it was not true. Then came the task of proving the case and getting the SEC the necessary paperwork or contacts to come to that conclusion themselves.
I consider myself "retired" from these sorts of full-scale investigations. Kind of like someone who is proud he fought in a war but isn't exactly thrilled about signing up for the next one. For me it's mostly about the entertainment. When it stops becoming entertaining, I'm done.
For example, how can you not be entertained by CSHD? They claim their Amazon underwater logging contract represents $75 billion worth of logs... and $4 trillion in carbon credits. Yes, trillion! ( See: Message 22874254 ). One day the stock will be shut down and reset to $15, no, wait $45, no wait, it's worth thousands per share! They got bonds worth billions, except for the fact they haven't paid for them. How can you not be entertained?!
- Jeff |
