DJ Short-Seller Anthony Elgindy Again Holds Court Online
By Riva Richmond
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, better known online as
Anthony@Pacific, is back and fighting the old fight.
After a four-month hiatus last year in a minimum-security lockup
(for mail fraud), the self-made online guru and short-seller is
holding court again on the Silicon Investor stock-talk Web site.
Elgindy rose to prominence among online personalities in the
tech-stock boom. His old nemesis, Yun Soo Oh Park IV, aka "Tokyo Joe,"
charged with "pump-and-dump" stock manipulation, still comments on
stocks, too, but Park now holds little sway over the market. Elgindy
lives on, however, puncturing inflated stocks and selling short.
On the SI message board Elgindy founded in 1998, "Anthony@Equity
Investigations, Dear Anthony," he promised to alert fellow investors
to "overhyped, overvalued, fraudulent, promoted, spammed, or suspect
equities."
When the tech-bubble burst, other online stock gurus receded from
view. But selling short, betting on stock prices to fall, can work
whether the market is going up or down. Messages on his SI discussion
forum have jumped since he got out of jail in October, running 1,000
to 2,000 a month now. Postings to message boards generally have been
declining.
Subscriptions to his private Web site have bounced back since what
he calls his "little vacation." Elgindy says www.anthonypacific.com
has about 250 paid members. He plans to raise subscription rates to
$1,000 a month for new members and $1,750 for hedge fund managers and
other professionals.
Bear markets offer special opportunities for short-sellers, he says.
Sham companies have to make their stories "crazier than normal" to
attract buyers, he says. "That makes it much easier for us to tear
them down."
He won't say what stocks he shorts, but it is "a very safe bet," he
says, that they are the ones he attacks online. Lately those include
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), BioPulse International Inc. (BIOP) and Seaview
Video Technology Inc. (SEVU).
BioPulse is a favorite target. The San Diego company has said it is
testing a "cancer vaccine" at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. It purports
to use antigens collected from urine in the vaccine which is said to
spur a patient's immune system to attack tumor cells.
BioPulse has said it also uses insulin-induced comas to try to
arrest tumor growth and uses other "alternative" therapies, including
acoustic lightwaves, large vitamin C doses and enemas in the Tijuana
clinic.
BioPulse isn't seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for
testing in the U.S. Some other biotech companies are conducting
FDA-approved cancer-vaccine trials in the U.S.
"It is a company that preys on the terminally ill cancer patient
with unproven, untested and pie-in-the-sky dream nonsense. Urine
antigens, odd and random testimonials that are unverifiable and a
clinic that is out of the jurisdiction of the FDA," Elgindy wrote on
SI Monday.
BioPulse's stock, traded over-the-counter, fell to $5.50 from $6.38
Monday on volume of 195,800 shares, nearly triple its average volume.
Elgindy has given it a "price target" of 5 cents in nine months.
BioPulse protested message board attacks in a press release Monday.
It said online critics had seized on a small segment of its business,
its research and development clinic operations in Mexico, and that
recent posts contained falsehoods.
BioPulse is "working with the regulatory, legal and criminal
channels to tidy this issue up," said John Liviakis, a spokesman.
BioPulse will be "aggressive" in its pursuit of its online detractors,
he said.
Elgindy defends his posts. "There isn't a single word in them that
is false," he says. "They can pursue all they want."
In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday,
BioPulse said the Federal Trade Commission is inquiring into whether
its advertising has been "unfair or deceptive" and is asking the
company to substantiate claims about its treatments.
Liviakis, the BioPulse spokesman, said the FTC inquiry is routine,
not "any kind of material event." His company, Liviakis Financial
Communications, has received 1.55 million BioPulse shares as
compensation for its services, according to an SEC filing.
An FTC spokesman wouldn't confirm or deny an FTC inquiry, which is
less formal than an investigation. Cancer-treatment claims, he said,
often receive scrutiny because dying patients, desperate for cures,
are a "vulnerable community."
Elgindy called BioPulse "a sham and a scam" that is "based entirely
on selling stock." The SEC filing Tuesday included notice of possible
sale of up to 7.8 million shares. BioPulse now has 8.6 million shares
outstanding.
Elgindy was a car salesman and a penny-stocks broker before he got
on the Internet. He was suspended for 30 days and fined $30,000 by the
National Association of Securities Dealers in 1997 for violating
stock-trading rules. Previously, he had been fined $60,000 by an
arbitrator in a dispute with a former employer, Bear Stearns & Co.
Elgindy lost his broker's license after refusing to pay the fines.
His 115-day jail sentence last year was for a mail fraud conviction
related to a 1993 disability claim. He had claimed that a
securities-fraud investigation of another former employer, Armstrong
McKinley, pushed him into depression and out of work. Prosecutors said
Elgindy had continued to collect disability checks after he was hired
by Bear Stearns.
-By Riva Richmond, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5670; |
