To all on the thread,
You will be interested to begin watching Diversinet (DVNTF). I'll give you some pertinent facts for now, but it's one to observe and smile at much like ZONA and ZITL and the rest...virtually worthless but heavily promoted with an emerging 'story'. I don't know if it is wise to short it at this time, although in my view you won't lose if you short it for the long term.
Pertinent facts:
* Stock run up this week to $5, not long ago was at 50 cents. Now as far as I know it isn't traded on the NASDAQ national market but rather the small cap market...not all clear on the difference, maybe someone can explain to me why this matters.
It IS clear though that in Canada the stock trades on the very unreliable (very very unreliable) Canadian Dealing Network, or Canadian OTC exchange. Basically then it is a BB stock folks.
* The "story": it's a 'baby Verisign'. Or a 'baby Certicom'. Or 'another Cybercash'. In any case the story is enough to give it legs. Lots of technical geniuses hired on, they have a great sounding story, they can associate themselves with Verisign, Certicom, etc. These sorts of 'companies by association' of course have done well in this bull market. As I posted on the DVNTF thread they are using some interesting tricks, like licensing (i.e. paying for) Certicom encryption technology (BTW, Paul Allen sunk a huge equity stake into Certicom, which developed a sophisticated encryption system) and then announcing an alliance with Certicom. Similar to what "WARPF" used to do...it re-sold some Newbridge Networks hardware and claimed a strategic alliance with Newbridge!!! Ha ha!
* Scarcely a year ago this was a bankrupt stock promotion with a company name "The Instant Publisher" trading under the stock symbol TIPIF. They cleaned it up, reorganized, renamed, issued new incentive stock options, etc. This new company has a totally different story, but that's all these promoters ever do is stories. Some of the same cast of characters is behind Warp 10 Technologies (WARPF) and Gaming Lottery (GLCCF) among other non-revenue-generating story stocks.
* The credibility quotient is (or at least seems) high. The promoters have made sure this company has reputable technical people on staff, and are touting the fact that some directors are MSFT and NSCP honchos.
* All sounds on the up and up, right? Well don't be so sure. Not one of the companies in this 'stable' has ever panned out. This one won't either. As I say, just keep an eye on it and observe as ordinary investors are bamboozled by the associations with big technology companies, and be amazed as the ordinary investor's eyes glaze over and brain stops working in the face of an inscrutable technological 'story'. Hey, I don't claim to understand it. That's why I'm a little scared to short it. But I sure wouldn't go long on it. I wonder who is foolish enough to do that.
Kind of reminds me of:
"Say, have you ever heard of a little company in San Antonio Texas, DATA RACE...the president was one of the inventors of Arpanet, the precursor to the internet, he has a new product and I hear that there is some kind of Lucent connection.........insurance companies going to install 10,000 units...." ...you get the picture. (In case you don't, Data Race ran from $2, to $6, to 7, 8, 12, 15, 20, and topped out at $24 on this hype. Now ready to close its doors and trading at $1.625.)
Already a shill on the DVNTF thread has posed as some MBA type trying to apply a business valuation technique on this so far worthless company...let's figure...back of the envelope...x,000 "seats installed" with the 5 big Canadian banks....y'know they're 'tight' with those big banks...$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ahem ahem cough cough
By the way, compare this to 2 companies I recommended on my Roaring 20 thread, Mpact Immedia (IFM on Toronto) & International Verifact (IVIAF), doing a roaring business in electronic commerce with real contracts with such banks, so as you can see I am not against Canadian technology companies or electronic commerce or alliances with banks, or encryption technology, or payment systems...
I just want the promoters of this stock to SHOW US THE MONEY!!! Please watch DVNTF and let me know your thoughts, and remember what Roger says, be reasonably polite. And please don't short anything on my advice. WATCH FIRST. DVNTF plans to announce its super cool public key encryption technology in May 1998.
Another note: time may be of the essence for the promoters. There are rumblings that there will be a legal dispute over the rights to this technology, with an Israeli company that claims ownership of it. So the runup and collapse of the stock price could be accelerated. This thing is like WARPF and Crystallex all rolled into one. IMO only. |
