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Microcap & Penny Stocks : LGOV: For the Serious Investor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Phil(bullrider) who wrote (601)	1/23/2001 8:04:32 AM
From: puddinhead	Respond to of 608

Hey BR, Maybe hollen will be next, he follows this pattern..... Canada's securities regulators have warned investors not to rely on information they get from Internet chat rooms or bulletin boards because so much of it may be false or misleading. In co-ordinated bulletins sent out by securities commissions across the country, the regulators said the Internet is being used by some individuals to goose up the value of thinly traded stocks. Douglas Hyndman, chairman of the British Columbia Securities Commission and chairman of the national council of securities regulators, said in a statement that the Internet allows people to "exaggerate and lie" anonymously while claiming to be experts. Buying stocks based on information posted in a chat room is like buying stocks "based on a note tacked to a wall outside a grocery store," Mr. Hyndman said. His comments parallel a warning from outgoing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt to investors last week. He was quoted by the New York Times as saying that a chat room is nothing more than graffiti. "It's nothing different than what you see on a bathroom wall," he said. "And if you are dumb enough to invest based on a lavatory wall, then you deserve to lose money." The Canadian regulators' warning said investors should be particularly wary of postings that claim to include "inside information" because hot tips posted on the Internet are seldom, if ever, true. In fact, the regulators said U.S. estimates suggest that as many as half the messages in Internet chat rooms contain false information. Shares of thinly traded stocks are easily manipulated, the Canadian regulators noted, because relatively small trades can shift the price dramatically. It is also difficult to check out the veracity of claims made about these stocks because they often involve projects in far-flung parts of the world. In addition, the regulators said investors should not count on Internet service providers to police their bulletin boards. The regulators themselves are attempting to police the Internet, but it is a huge and daunting task and prosecutions have been scarce. Last fall, the Quebec Securities Commission suspended Steve Boisson, a former employee of Toronto-Dominion Bank's brokerage subsidiary, for pumping up a stock's price in an Internet chat room. And the Ontario Securities Commission recently shut down four Internet operations it alleged were running illegal investment schemes. Colin McCann, the OSC's senior investigator for Internet scams, said Monday that the commission has more cases and is updating its list of discussion groups to monitor. He said one reason regulators are concerned about misleading information on the Net is that on-line brokerage firms are increasingly encouraging investors to do their own research. PH