There is no doubt in my mind that MM manipulation exists and that ISGI is one of their targets. It is also obvious to me that message boards like SI are being used by the MM as a tool. Notice the timing of some of the posters of negitive information. Some of the negitive posters are legit, the shareholders feel as manipulated as the stock and rightfully so. The MM who control the stock ARE posting information to help their cause!! The following is just some general info on this topic.:
y Deborah Lohse
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Stock-market regulators are increasingly worried that dangers are lurking for investors in places like "misc.invest.stocks"; "techstocks.com"; the Motley Fool and other Internet and on-line stock-talk forums.
Such sites are the newest, hottest medium for discussing, dissecting -- and sometimes hyping -- companies, especially the smallest stocks found on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Nasdaq's OTC Bulletin Board or in the Pink Sheets put out by the National Quotation Bureau.
America Online's Motley Fool, one of the most widely known and popular forums, has an estimated 250,000 households reading its site each month. Silicon Investor, a popular Internet site, has 30,000 daily visitors posting 60,000 messages a month. And countless messages litter stock-specific web sites and so-called newsgroups such as alt.invest.penny-stocks.
While the opportunities for information and education are boundless on the Internet, regulators fear the dangers are, too.
"The Internet has lowered the barriers to entry for everyone, including those who would perpetrate fraud on the marketplace," says Rob Bertram, a Pennsylvania regulator and chairman of the Offers and Sales on the Internet Committee of the North American Securities Administrators Association.
One of the biggest problems is that what appears to be enthusiastic chatter may instead be orchestrated hype or outright fraud. But because people can use pseudonyms in many areas on-line, regulators can't immediately tell if the source of the chatter is an insider, a broker, promoter or an ordinary investor. That makes it tough for the National Association of Securities Dealers to police fraud or false advertising by brokers or Nasdaq companies under its jurisdiction, and for the Securities and Exchange Commission or the states to police fraud or unregistered securities over the Internet.
One America Online chatster dubbed "Wcrea48982" tried to enlist three other people to talk up Teltrend Inc., a St. Charles, Ill., maker of transmission products for telephone companies. He or she sent private electronic mail to three people who had seemed bullish on the company in past on-line posts, proposing the foursome buy Teltrend shares the morning earnings were due out from the company, then "hit . . . every other board we can think of with note after note in an attempt to pick up followers" and raise the stock price. Instead of cashing in, the three people solicited exposed the botched attempt at boosting the stock by posting it for other investors to see. In an e-mail, the author refused to disclose his or her name.
The boards are also full of reckless predictions or half-truths. On April 6, someone dubbed "Tbonecarl" wrote that Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Home Link Corp., a minuscule, unprofitable telecommunications company, "has an institutional buyer and will add over 3.8 BILLION $$$ to the bottom line over next few months." While Home Link's stock didn't immediately rocket on Tbonecarl's hype, in late May and June the stock blasted from under $1 a share to around $20 on trading on the OTC Bulletin Board, Nasdaq's largely unregulated trading forum for tiny stocks. Trading was halted by the SEC June 10 and the SEC sued the company and its president, Matt Matson, in federal court in Miami for allegedly defrauding investors by misrepresenting its assets, revenue and Nasdaq-listing status in documents sent to investors. Mr. Matson didn't return calls for comment. Tbonecarl didn't return e-mail messages.
(END) DOW JONES NEWS 09-12-96
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