March 8, 2007 S.E.C. Cracks Down on Spam-Driven Stocks By REUTERS Filed at 1:26 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading on Thursday in the stocks of 35 small companies linked to spam e-mail campaigns urging small investors to buy shares. The SEC said it launched an enforcement effort to protect investors from potentially fraudulent spam e-mail promoting small company stocks with phrases like, ``Ready to Explode,'' ''Ride the Bull'' and ``Fast Money.'' ``Today's action will disrupt the operations of these boiler rooms and make it harder for the spammers and promoters to dump their stock on an unsuspecting public,'' SEC enforcement director Linda Thomsen said at a press conference on Thursday. The commission said in a statement that an estimated 100 million of these spam messages are sent every week, triggering dramatic spikes in share price and trading volume before the spamming stops and investors lose their money. It said the stocks halted typically sell for less than $1 per share and are quoted on the Pink Sheets quotation service. The trading suspensions began on Thursday and will last for 10 business days, ending at noon on March 21, the agency said. Mark Schonfeld, director of the SEC's northeast regional office, said that investor losses related to the 35 companies are in the tens of millions of dollars. ``Now that we have stopped the trading in these stocks, we will focus our attention on the people behind the spam and profiting from it,'' Schonfeld said. He said the SEC is investigating the companies themselves as well as outsiders, and that the same people are likely behind multiple spam campaigns. In one spam campaign involving Apparel Manufacturing Associates (APPM.PK), the SEC said the company's stock closed at 6 cents on trading volume of 3,500 shares on Friday, December 15, 2006. After a weekend spam campaign distributed e-mails proclaiming ``Huge news expected out on APPM, get in before the wire, We're taking it all the way to $1.00,'' trading volume on Monday, December 18, 2006, soared to 484,568 shares with the price spiking to over 19 cents a share. Two days later the APPM price climbed to 45 cents. However, by December 27, 2006, the price had slumped to 10 cents on trading volume of 65,350 shares, the agency said. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said that not even the investor protection agency is immune to the onslaught of stock-related spam. He said the SEC's public affairs director, John Nester, received an e-mail touting the stock of one of the 35 companies. ``Not even the SEC's spam filter can stop all this spam,'' Cox said. The SEC said it suspended trading in the following stocks: + Advanced Powerline Technologies Inc.+ America Asia Petroleum Corp.+ Amerossi Int'l Group, Inc.+ Apparel Manufacturing Associates, Inc.+ Asgard Holdings Inc.+ Biogenerics Ltd.+ China Gold Corp.+ CTR Investments & Consulting, Inc.+ DC Brands International, Inc.+ Equal Trading, Inc.+ Equitable Mining Corp.+ Espion International, Inc.+ Goldmark Industries, Inc.+ GroFeed Inc.+ Healtheuniverse, Inc.+ Interlink Global Corp.+ Investigative Services Agencies, Inc.+ iPackets International, Inc.+ Koko Petroleum Inc.+ Leatt Corporation+ LOM Logistics, Inc.+ Modern Energy Corp.+ National Healthcare Logistics, Inc.+ Presidents Financial Corp.+ Red Truck Entertainment Inc.+ Relay Capital Corp.+ Rodedawg International Industries, Inc.+ Rouchon Industries, Inc.+ Software Effective Solutions Corp.+ Solucorp Industries Ltd.+ Sports-stuff.com Inc.+ UBA Technology, Inc.+ Wataire Industries Inc.+ WayPoint Biomedical Holdings, Inc.+ Wineco Productions Inc. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-spam-sec.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Me too but I was extremely disappointed to not see KMBR or something like that one the list...Kimber mines. I get 15 of those a day...luckily my email parses them into a spam folder but I am dismayed everytime I see them.
Guess I am lucky - I only get 3 or 4 daily. I think there are some laws about not providing a "remove me from your list" reply that works and if so I would like to see some go to jail - all I can do now is to mark them as spam so my ISP (yahoo) may be able to send some directly to spam file or block entirely.
I can't believe people actually buy into this BS... you get a stock tip from a complete stranger, on your email and trade accordingly... now there's an edge you won't hear at the strategy forum...
most of the people who buy these stocks have too much money to know what to do with it.... They are trying to fill a void or gain excitement in their life by following the "story" of the stock and feeling involved. This will continue to go on and on as "A sucker is born every minute" rings so true
and I'm still waiting for my free gift certificate for 2 to olive garden for filling out a 9 page survey on that risque site CajunSniper / Puretick.com Administrator-Trader
Naa... I think is old retiered folks who think those kids at wallstreet are such good and nice people, "they're always sharing their information out of the goodness of their hearts"