glad to oblige. have to use the full url here to link ( not just the highlighted thread ..all the way until .html ).
long article by Susan Antilla, this is the second story after the first one on WhizKid a couple of days ago: news.com
Whiz Kid Web Tout Finds Audience Less Adoring:
Susan Antilla Bloomberg News
March 9, 1999, 11:51 a.m. PT
Whiz Kid Web Tout Finds Audience Less Adoring: Susan Antilla
New York, March 9 (Bloomberg) -- That whiz kid stock-picker has turned from hot to hot potato.
After weeks of adoration by his followers, Daniel Miller, the ninth-grader whose market-moving Web page we discussed here last week, is taking his lumps from those who loiter on the Silicon Investor Internet spot that Miller launched.
Message-posters have been accusing Miller of everything from acting as tool of stock promoters to front-running his own recommendations -- brokerage-speak for hoarding shares for yourself before you tell the world to buy.
Miller says he does not front-run.
Even those who would profit by Miller's touts are working to disassociate themselves from the 15-year-old.
More troubling than the accusatory messages posted by his increasingly vocal -- albeit self-interested -- foes, though, are
those posted under Miller's name. In a Feb. 15 e-mail to Miller on the Silicon Investor site, someone calling himself ''Lucky888'' had complained he was ''down big time'' because he ''loaded up'' on shares of Eagle Capital International Ltd. at Miller's suggestion. A return message from Miller minutes later is apologetic: ''Ouch. I am very sorry lucky...For that I will have to let you in on my stock pick early next time.''
The SEC would not discuss whether Miller, with hisoversights and hints, might be doing anything that warranted regulatory action, but a spokesman was willing to say that the agency is not restricted from bringing an action because of a person's age. As to any worries about the regulators -- among 16 other questions faxed to him March 7 -- Miller would not comment, saying he had work to do researching stocks and doing his school work. (He did, however, point out that his Web page discloses both that he is not a registered investment adviser and that he may own the stocks he touts).
But Harvey Pitt, former enforcement chief at the SEC who has represented such securities law violators as Ivan Boesky, says Miller offers regulators the potential for an action on allegations that range from inadequate disclosure to as much as fraud. ''What is required is that people know what they're getting when they tune into you,'' says Pitt. ''And my assumption is that he can't do that because if he did, nobody would pay attention to him.''
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