I'm familiar with office people who have pooled money and buy penny stocks, just like lotto pools. Here is one result of a spam e mail, the Iraqi playing cards. Granted it is not a stock but there are parallels in possible results, you can draw your own conclusions. "Of the 25 million messages sent, they received 3,164 orders -- a response rate of just over one-tenth of 1 percent." I could imagine 3,164 people buying $500 of some penny stock. That amount of money could move a penny stock a bit.
How do some of these spam e-mails get into incorrect mail boxes, I often wonder? Let's say, my e-mail address is abcdef@verizon.net, but I often receive spams for ghidef@verizon.net--IOW, the e-mail address displayed in "To:" field is not my e-mail address at all?