O.T. (read this !) - WSJ article -- idiotic Internet stuff (Big Dog).
April 22, 1999
A 'Big Dog' in Chat Rooms
Takes a Wild Internet Ride
By JOHN R. EMSHWILLER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
CLIFTON, N.J. -- Mike "Big Dog" Nichols has gone from textile-coatings
salesman to Internet-stock guru to online investor-relations specialist to
co-founder of a publicly traded cyberspace-shopping mall with a market value
of about $100 million. All in less than a year.
The 42-year-old Mr. Nichols has seen his
wealth, at least on paper, soar by millions of
dollars in recent weeks because of his holdings
in the Internet shopping mall, called iChargeit
Inc., that trades on the OTC Bulletin Board.
"It's unbelievable," he says.
It is the Internet stock-trading world, where mindboggling tales are almost
mundane. However, even in an arena where companies with barely enough
revenue for a cup of coffee can have Himalayan market capitalizations, few
stories illustrate more graphically the crazy power of the Net than Big Dog's
ride.
The ride started in this town across the Hudson River from Manhattan, where
Mr. Nichols lives with his wife and one of his two daughters. For 12 years, he
sold vinyl coatings for textiles.
Stock-Chat Rooms
In November 1997, he began exploring the Internet stock-chat world. There,
he found adventure, intrigue, camaraderie and combat. There were passwords
to private electronic "rooms" where strangers from around the world discussed
"mo-mo mamas," "scam dogs," "bashers" and "pump and dumps." Amid all this
Internet stock-trading lingo was the lure of making a fortune without leaving
the upstairs living room of his duplex. It was, Mr. Nichols recalls, "a world
you wouldn't believe."
Like many Internet traders, he chose a new
name for this new world. The nearly
6-foot-5-inch, 370-pound Mr. Nichols became
Big Dog.
He quickly became a big bark on the chat circuit.
By last summer, over 500 people had
bookmarked Big Dog on the Web site Silicon Investor, making him one of the
most-followed names on that popular stock-chat operation. In June, he quit his
sales job to trade full time.
He had a flair for the dramatic. "Move over TokyoMex BIG DOG is in town,"
was the message Mr. Nichols posted early last year on a Silicon Investor chat
site that had been started by another Internet stock-chat guru. Mr. Nichols and
his allies posted so many hostile messages that TokyoMex turned the site over
to Mr. Nichols, who promptly renamed it the Dog House.
In the fall, someone started a chat site called "The life and times of BIG DOG,
a historical perspective." Fans portrayed him as a savvy stock trader. Critics
focused on his poorer picks. "If you place his brain on the edge of a razor
blade ... it would look like a Tic Tac on a 4 lane highway," one volunteered.
Online Consultant
Tiring of the turmoil, Mr. Nichols says he decided to
use his Internet fame to start an online
investor-relations and media firm, called Capital
Financial Consultants. Mr. Nichols says his firm has
signed up as clients several little companies listed on
the OTC Bulletin Board, which is maintained by the
National Association of Securities Dealers for stocks
that don't qualify for the Nasdaq Stock Market itself.
The companies have paid him in stock that he
estimates has a current value of a few million dollars,
though given the volatility and difficulty in selling
many Bulletin Board issues any such paper wealth
could have the shelf life of a mirage. But even if he
gets nothing from that stock, he says, "I'm not afraid
to lose money because I know I can make more."
Capital Financial Consultants' Web site carries a disclaimer saying it is paid by
some of the companies mentioned on the site. Whether the disclosure efforts
satisfy the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been
cracking down on what it views as inadequate disclosure in this area, isn't
clear. The agency doesn't comment on specific Internet sites unless it files a
case, an SEC spokesman says.
Cyberspace Mall
In an effort to further cash in on cyberspace, Mr. Nichols recently teamed up
with his Internet buddy Cavalry, also known as Jesse Cohen, a Huntington
Beach, Calif., man who was developing the iChargeit shopping mall.
The pair brought iChargeit public last
month by merging it with a shell
company that had no operations but
was trading on the OTC Bulletin
Board. Mr. Cohen is iChargeit's
chairman and chief executive. He
initially said Mr. Nichols was vice
president, but later upgraded him to
president. "Call me bottle washer as
long as I get the money," Mr. Nichols
says.
In recent weeks, iChargeit's stock has
gone from less than $4 to as high as
$29, and is currently trading at about
$14. Mr. Cohen says he owns about
32% of the company's 7.2 million shares. Mr. Nichols says he has a stake of
about 17%. Suppliers and shareholders of the shell company have much of the
rest, Mr. Cohen says.
So far, only about 200,000 iChargeit shares are free to trade under federal
securities law, though more will become available in coming months. Messrs.
Cohen and Nichols say their shares are still restricted.
Counting on Big Gains
With a small trading volume, iChargeit shares weren't hit by Monday's big
sell-off in Internet stocks, nor was Mr. Nichols, who says his holdings don't
include any of the big online names. "Every Internet stock out there is
overpriced," he says, adding "except mine" in response to a question.
In the first three months of this year, iChargeit had $30,000 in revenue, Mr.
Cohen says. The company doesn't yet have publicly available financial
statements, but hopes to have them soon.
Its 14 online-mall tenants include a florist, a coffee seller, a consumer-loan
broker and an art gallery. They pay iChargeit between 10% and 20% of sales
revenue and about $140 per month in rent, Mr. Cohen says. The mall also
recently began carrying banner ads from other sites.
Some tenants are clients of Mr. Nichols's investor-relations firm. Mr. Cohen
has big expansion plans and Mr. Nichols plays down the competitive threat of
bigger Internet-mall operations. "There are enough people to go around," he
says.
Naturally, iChargeit has already spawned Internet chat sites. Critics howled
when they discovered that the initial artist featured at the mall's gallery was Mr.
Cohen's mother. Mr. Cohen says his mother is a fine painter and that other
artists have been added.
Mr. Nichols shrugs off the criticisms as he focuses on the hoped-for bottom
line. He says he sees no reason why he can't eventually reap tens of millions of
dollars from his iChargeit stock. With the Internet, "I feel like anything I want,
I can get," he says.
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