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Microcap & Penny Stocks : NAMX -- North American Expl.-- Que Sera Sera! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (3531)	4/26/1998 9:12:00 PM
From: bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4736

Was a plumber. Now working in my wife's business and dabbling in the market. Profile has been updated for a long time.

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (3531)	4/27/1998 9:24:00 AM
From: Hunter Vann	Respond to of 4736

From USA Today... Beware of pay-to-play stock gurus By Tom Lowry Mon., April 20, 1998 FINAL EDITION Section: MONEY Page 1B NEW YORK -- Regulators fear investors are being misled by the growing number of radio and television financial pundits who buy airtime and then hype stocks. At best, the shows are infomercials. Depending on the city, the hosts pay $100 to more than $2,000 an hour to the stations that broadcast them. At worst, they become forums for aggressive stock promoters. Under federal law, radio stations must tell listeners a show is paying for its airtime. And hosts must disclose when -- and how much -- they're being paid to tout a stock. Since January 1996, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed at least eight civil complaints against people who allegedly failed to make those disclosures. Prosecutors around the country also are filing criminal charges. Last week, Jerome Wenger, who pays to broadcast his The Next Super Stock show on 10 radio stations nationwide, was charged with stock fraud. Federal prosecutors say listeners lost millions of dollars after investing in a penny stock he promoted without disclosing he was being paid. Wenger's lawyer, Vincent Verdiramo Jr., declined to comment. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, who brought the Wenger case, says radio and television create ''an inherent enhanced credibility'' for programs. ''Listeners think they are getting an objective analysis. But unless there's full disclosure, they are being misled,'' she says. White did not rule out holding radio stations responsible for airing Wenger's shows. In other similar cases: Michael Cardascia, host of Inside Wall Street on New York's WEVD/1050 AM, was charged in a civil complaint by the SEC in March. Theodore Melcher was sentenced to a year in jail and fined $20,000 last year for illegally promoting a stock in his Internet newsletter. The SEC says Melcher made $515,802 on the stock. Radio talk show host Irvin ''Sonny'' Bloch, who died last month, pleaded guilty in 1996 to charges he used his show, heard on about 200 stations, to promote fraudulent investments that cost investors more than $21 million. While financial shows are a tiny niche in talk radio -- about 300 shows nationwide -- such cases give the entire industry a black eye, says Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine. ''It's an extreme abuse of public trust.'' Ken and Daria Dolan, personal finance hosts on 180 radio stations, don't pay for airtime and never tout stocks. But Daria worries that the ''line between shows like ours and those that pay to be on the air often becomes difficult to see.''