"I want to assure our investors that Asgard Holdings has had spectacular success on 579 worlds!"
Posted on 03/09/2007 3:29:56 PM PST by Snickering Hound
WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading Thursday in more than 30 companies whose shares were touted in e-mail spam campaigns.
The suspensions are part of an SEC effort called "Operation Spamalot," which began last fall. The suspensions will last for 10 business days, through March 21.
The SEC said it took the action to protect investors from fraud, because the accuracy of information in e-mails about the companies was questionable. The SEC did not identify who had sent the e-mails or say whether any of the companies was responsible.
E-mails with messages such as "Ready to Explode," "Ride the Bull" and "Fast Money" clog people's inboxes — an estimated 100 million of them a week — and spark dramatic spikes in trading and stock prices before the spamming stops and investors lose their money, the SEC said.
The companies' shares are not traded on stock exchanges. They are listed on the so-called Pink Sheets, an electronic quotation service in which brokers posting quotations to buy or sell stocks are not required to investigate the background of the companies.
The use of spam e-mail to hype stocks is a variation on the classic "pump and dump" stock scheme, in which the perpetrators get people to buy stocks to inflate their prices and then sell their blocks of shares at a profit. Ordinary investors can suffer heavy losses when the prices tank.
"When spam clogs our mailboxes, it's annoying. When it rips off investors, it's illegal and destructive," SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said at a news conference. "Today's trading suspensions, and actions that will follow, should send a clear message to spammers: The SEC will hold you accountable."
SEC officials said their investigation of the individuals behind the spam schemes continues. Their identities are known to the agency, they said.
The companies are: Advanced Powerline Technologies, America Asia Petroleum Corp., Amerossi International Group, Apparel Manufacturing, Asgard Holdings, Biogenerics, China Gold Corp., CTR Investments & Consulting, DC Brands International, Equal Trading, Equitable Mining Corp., Espion International, Goldmark Industries, GroFeed, Healtheuniverse, Interlink Global Corp., Investigative Services Agencies, iPackets International, Koko Petroleum, Leatt Corp., LOM Logistics, Modern Energy Corp., National Healthcare Logistics, Presidents Financial Corp., Red Truck Entertainment, Relay Capital Corp., Rodedawg International Industries, Rouchon Industries, Software Effective Solutions Corp., Solucorp Industries, Sports-stuff.com, UBA Technology, Wataire Industries, WayPoint Biomedical Holdings and Wineco Productions.
On the one hand, I applaud this, since I'm getting sick of their crap showing up in my in-box. On the other hand, anyone buying a stock touted in one of these emails is a moran and probably would just be conned out of the money by squirrels in the park anyway.
you mean those emails are not real??? Oh sh*t!!!! /s
"I want to assure our investors that Asgard Holdings has had spectacular success on 579 worlds!"
"They are listed on the so-called Pink Sheets, an electronic quotation service in which brokers posting quotations to buy or sell stocks are not required to investigate the background of the companies."
Should pink sheet even be legal?
Watch. Now the Russian Mafia will have to be paid NOT to pump someone's penny stock.
I think they should be legal, but maybe only for accredited investors with high net worth. There are a lot of legitimate companies traded on the pink sheets that are too small to afford the probably millions of dollars of overhead just to keep their paperwork up to date with the SEC.
I wish they would check into a company called Fidelity Media whhile their at it.
By the headline I thought perhaps Monty Python had run amok at the NYSE.
Don't know about Monty Python, but these danged penny stocks have run amok in my inbox. My spamkiller gets most of them, but there seems to be a contest between penny pink sheet stocks and Viagra sales.
It's interesting to see the lengths some of these senders will go to try to defeat spam detectors.
On average I guess I was getting 6 of them every 12 hours. Now I'm down to one every 12 hours.
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