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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Rocky Mountain Int'l (OTC:RMIL former OTC:OVIS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MY OPINION who wrote (51850)	8/24/1998 8:41:00 AM
From: Just My Opinion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 55532

Daddy: Maybe this is an idea. zdnet.com Inter@ctive WeekAugust 20, 1998 Trading Site Focuses On Smaller Companies By Kimberly Weisul 10:30 AM EDT Niphix Investments, a discount broker, plans to team up with an online promoter of microcap initial public offerings to provide a Web-based trading system for companies that are too small or obscure to otherwise see any trading in their stock. The system, called Niphix, is a stock matching service rather than a traditional trading system, so there is no "bid" and "ask" and therefore no "spread" between the two, just one price at which the trade gets done. Investors open a brokerage account with Niphix, then pay a flat commission of $24 to $44, depending on how often they use the system. Internet Ventures Inc., a small Internet service provider, is the first company to begin trading on Niphix. Clay Womack, founder of The Direct Stock Market, an online service founded to assist small companies in going public over the Internet, said there are "literally thousands of small companies that have illiquid stocks that don't have any volume because the spreads are too wide." He's marketing Niphix to roughly 500 of those companies, he said, and expects to have 200 signed up by year's end. Companies that go public via Womack's service get a discount off the $2,500 annual listing fee charged by Niphix. He said his own site has approximately 11,000 registered users. Womack expects Niphix to hit critical mass when 35 companies are listed and 7,000 investors trade on the system. Tom Stewart-Gordon, editor of The Scor Report, a newsletter that tracks initial public offerings (IPOs) that raise less than $5 million, pointed out that Niphix minimizes the opportunity for manipulation of its listed stocks. There is no broker, so there is no one to hype the stock. Niphix does not allow shorting, where an investor essentially bets that a stock's price will fall, nor does it allow margin trading. So, companies trading on Niphix should be able to avoid the fate of many tiny companies listing on bulletin boards, where, according to Stewart-Gordon, "the only people who know about the stocks are the ones who want to sell it." Nimish Gandhi, president of Niphix, said a secondary market for small-company shares, such as the one provided by Niphix, will help to fix a realistic value on companies and will attract further investment, enabling them to grow. Stewart-Gordon said companies don't necessarily need to provide a secondary market for their shares to attract investors. Niphix "will eventually change the face of the market," he said, because a broker isn't sitting on one side of the trade. But he thinks the direct benefits to listing companies are minimal. Individuals invest in tiny, homegrown IPOs either because they like the company's product or they want to support its philosophy, Gordon said. But companies that sanction trading of their shares must make accurate financial information available. "All the company gets out of this," Stewart-Gordon said, "is a liability," since the company is responsible for any inaccurate data. Niphix can be reached at www.niphix.com The Direct Stock Market can be reached at www.directstockmarket.com E-mail Kimberly Weisul