To: nokomis who wrote (92380 ) 4/7/2000 11:11:00 PM From: Jenna Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 120523
Nope.. not at all, but I think you overplay our 'power'.. Although PLUG was very thinly traded today, I doubt that our trading calls are followed in 'real time' to the extent that they cause changes in the stocks themselves. We call them AFTER there has been a reversal or breakout. We also don't call "garbage or spout misinformation". We don't hammer any stocks unmercilessly nor tout a stock with no obvious fundamentals and ridiculous claims. Its the "Barrons" and the "Abbey Joseph Cohens" that move the big stocks and the little 'penny-anti' chat rooms that blast the smaller companies by maligning everything from the management, to the product to the performance in the future etc. all for the purpose of making money by destroying investor confidence in the company. Its not the same as shorting, its more devastating than the occasional short position or even a long term short. Its not the short itself but the way it was 'achieved' thats the problem. Now the difference is that some chat rooms actually proclaim what stocks will do with words like "This POS is going to drop like a rock because it it wholly worthless" and proceed with a long line of 'details' which can be groundless or in some very rare cases they might be true. "Get on this because news is coming out this week and this stock is going to fly".. We don't do that. I've seen that kind of 'manipulation' in one stock room and on some threads on Raging Bull and its usually in stocks that are severely maligned. For example the devastation from the message boards on poor ZICA was so bad that the CEO called for a cessation. Can you see the CEO of AMAT saying: Market Gems is moving our stock or even the CEO of PLUG. For example, when AMAT turned the corner finally on Monday, I never said "AMAT is going to bounce today for sure, lets all get in or prepared".. when it happens it is the momentum of break out that is self sustaining. Even if you take the number of subscribers which in the scheme of things is not a lot, the clout is very minimal. ************ ZICA.. Zi Boss Writes to Investors to Curb Stock Battering By Susan Taylor OTTAWA (Reuters) - Acting on its plummeting share price and 'fear mongering' on Internet chat rooms, software developer Zi Corp. (Toronto:ZIC.TO - news)(NasdaqSC:ZICA - news) boss Michael Lobsinger assured shareholders in an open letter on Tuesday that the company's business remains strong. ``Ordinarily I would never write this type of letter, but the events of the past week are not ordinary,' Lobsinger wrote on Tuesday in attempts to set the record straight. ``Zi has...lost considerable market value...this decrease has fueled a great deal of misinformation.' Speak your mind Discuss this story with other people. [Start a Conversation] (Requires Yahoo! Messenger) Zi's much sought-after stock hit hard times over the last week as investors abandoned the technology sector in droves in favor of low-tech companies. The stock has also been hammered by negative chat room postings about a patent infringement battle Zi is waging with America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) subsidiary Tegic Communications Inc. and Asian Communications Pty Ltd., Lobsinger told Reuters in an interview. Zi stock, which rallied briefly to C$20.00 on Tuesday after Lobsinger's announcement, slipped back to C$15.50 by early afternoon, a drop of C$3.00. That represents a 53 percent decline in the stock from its close just one week ago at C$33.10 on March 27. The slide has stripped C$650 million ($448 million) from Zi's market capitalization, which has slid to C$580 million from C$1.23 billion. Zi is best known for its software that allows Chinese characters and other languages to be punched on traditional keyboards or keypads. That software is at the heart of a patent dispute with Tegic. Lobsinger said that Zi sued Tegic and Asian Communications for patent infringement in March 1999, and is now appealing a dismissal of that action. Tegic and Asian Communications last week filed patent infringement suits against Zi in California and Hong Kong courts in response to Zi's proceedings, Lobsinger said. Zi said it would file counter suits to those legal actions. The legal wrangling has resulted in a string of erroneous investor chat room postings, said Zi's head of investor relations, Karen Atwell. Messages range from claims that the litigation will send Zi into bankruptcy to insider trading accusations. ``It's fear mongering and that is the frustration that we are feeling,' Lobsinger told Reuters. ``On the chat rooms people literally put out misinformation and garbage.' He wrote to investors that the firm's business fundamentals remain ``bright' with fourth-quarter revenue an indication of the company's prospects. Sales in the quarter were up almost 200 percent over the same period last year, he said.