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Good luck Van... what a trooper! Heading to surgery today and still posting on iHub!!
lol... great question Gail. I've always wanted to see a picture of a market maker so I know they exist!!! LOL...
LOL... while you guys are able to keep an eye on everything here, I'll be at meetings the next two days in the middle of nowhere without computer access. Talk about going cold turkey on iHub and keeping an eye on stocks! Hoping to return Friday to a higher pps.
Good morning everyone! Great to wake up to Esprit news! Like we have been saying, Jack Chang was a HUGE addition to this company. The ink hasn't even dried on his contract and he is already planning on traveling to West Africa.... what can I say besides... I like it!
I don't know much about West Africa and at first I thought, why there? But it does make sense. Like the PR says a huge unbanked population and why not bring in a new technology that will assist their economic future.
Just the tip of the iceberg in my mind. Looking forward to watching this company grow.... such a large potential. I'll state it again. Getting Jack Chang onboard and having him head the ATM and electronic money management division showed me this company is for real.
Van, good luck with the surgery tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you back soon.
I found this on another board on iHub and thought it was worth copying and pasting here... regarding market makers. Interesting reading.
Once the MM is caught short and the strength of the buy is overpowering the MM will want to cover his short position. So the MMs call up one of his friendly MMs and says some like "the weather is sure rough today." The MM along with the other "friendly MM initiates a down tick about the same time. Now this can also be done with a certain amount of shares such as an infamous 100 shares flag. This down tick gives the illusion of weakness designed to hopefully begin the bear raid of selling.
So how do investors somehow manage to overcome the obvious deception in OTCBB arena? One answer is indirection trading style by going long which the MMs do not expect. In the war between investors and public companies on the OTC BB vs the MMs, if the MMs have all the advantages due to position or other factors, direct confrontation such as momentum or day trading hitting the stock is a definite death sentence.
However, an indirect approach tends to weaken the path of least resistance before slowly overcoming it. The most effective way is long-term investors slowly accumulating and holding thus drawing the MMs out of its defenses making them as naked as their short position. This is war so this slow accumulation and holding for the long term easily achieves the desired effect to force MMs to cover and knock off the tactics or bury themselves deeper.
Taken From this Great Article:
Invest Wisely and Trade Smartly
The savvy long-term investors never chase stocks up. For the most part that is momentum players and daytraders where most of it or what follows is dumb money. Instead the long-term investors use a couple of simple strategies in order to position themselves. One is to find a stock no one immediately sees has huge potential and accumulate.
Long-term investors are not interested in trading against the public mind or the dumb money. That's where the majority of the money can be made but even more can be made if the base of a stock is held extremely strong by investors. However the second is not to doubt the research which is the
underlying basis for going long and holding.
More and more investors are winning the game now days despite all bashers that float through the Internet that has become part of the game. Floor traders of market makers often watch CNBC, news wires and bulletin boards in order to follow the market during trading session. OTC BB market makers (MMs) don't use fundamental and technical analysis.
However, what they do realize is a lot of dumb money does use this newest nitch charting or TA (Technical Analysis) to run a stock either up or down. To the MMs this is like taking candy from a baby. Simply they will paint the tape and use whatever tactic to affect the charting bands. Thus the public and dumb money they will have eating out of their
hands. Effectively the MMs can show a strong stock growing weak by manipulating the close price in order to generate selling volume, delaying trading time to manipulate trading activities, or even stalling the ask without honoring orders to hold a stock price.
MMs follow a simple code of business when making a market in a stock especially an OTC BB. That is the level that stocks will seek that yields the most volume. Now this is very important because they make money on the volume buying at the bid and selling at the ask. In other words, by making the market they are buying low and selling high. Now smart money adheres to that rule, so do all the market makers. They could careless whether the stock is at $83 or at $0.23.
All they care about is the action thus being able to sell stock at the offer (The high) and buy stock at the bid (The low). To increase their profitability, they make the spread as great as possible on as many shares as they can especially if the volume falls off.
When they have mostly all "buy" orders, that's not the price that's going to yield the most volume. They need both buy and sells to get the maximum action. Remember, MMs play the volume. If the volume decreases and there are mostly Buys that become a one way volume, Buy volume. So what they do is let the stock run up to a price where it runs out of steam. They fill all the buy orders there that they can and then comes the pullback one way or another naturally or induced.
During the pull back they can buy tons of shares and flip them to those averaging down or trying to catch the bounce. At some price, the stock will be relatively stable and yield the most volume. Now that is the average price you will see. The average price is the point where a stock seeks a level where MMs can profit on the most volume. So during the day that is the price that MMs and momentum/day traders want to see the stock at.
Why? Because they know the public and dumb money was chasing the price thing up. Most of the time, the MMs love a flurry of Market Orders which is a dead sign of an artificial run or momentum. Merely it is money in the bank for them. Most get hung in a momentum or day trade or by the tactics of Market makers, who are in the business to screw the public
every chance they get and the NASD is not going to do anything about it. They are merely making the market liquid is their reasoning.
The market makers have created an added complication to the OTCBB's chaos of the already volatile intra-day price movements created by dumb money, momentum and day-traders. MMs can not relate to long-term holders in the OTC BB. That makes absolutely no sense what so ever. They feel a large percentage of trades in the OTC BB market consist of short term or day-trades, MMs merely view the barrage of buy and sell orders as relatively neutral to the market.
How they figure it is when the average dumb money buys shares in a company, the MMs feel or rather know with some certainty it is very likely that dumb money will want to sell back those shares relatively quick on the slightest drop.
Now somewhat comfortable with this logic the MMs merely short sells into the buying and attempts to take the stock down in an effort to "shake out" the weak. Since it is tough to know for sure whether a move is the beginning of a trend, or a routine shake out, this type of deception works quite well for the MMs. What the long-termers do to a stock is
surprise the MMs because instead of falling the shorting has no effect and the price goes up. Now that puts the MM at selling low through shorting and thus having to buy high in order to cover.
Boy, when this happens, the MMs are not very happy ampers. The investors and traders are supposed to be doing that no them. Now it becomes time to pull out every trick and tactic in the book in order to attempt to get a Bear Raid at every dollar mark or percent from where the stock started. Could be a penny in smaller priced securities? What MMs do is give you a chance to make a small amount of money for your momentum and day trading style by shorting it at these levels and trying to get a bear raid each time. Each failure is compounding the MMs short position so they let it go to the next level. Now come more deliberate tactics MMs use to coerce Bear Raid or panic selling.
Once the MM is caught short and the strength of the buy is overpowering the MM will want to cover his short position. So the MMs call up one of his friendly MMs and says some like "the weather is sure rough today." The MM along with the other "friendly MM initiates a down tick about the same time. Now this can also be done with a certain amount of shares such as an infamous 100 shares flag. This down tick gives the illusion of weakness designed to hopefully begin the bear raid of selling.
The fickle, fearful, day trader, momentum and short term begin to sell out allowing the MM to cover his short position at lower prices. They will move it down quickly to get it to a price of least financial damage. Problem they have is long-term investors in the OTC BB. They start
accumulating and buying comes flying in when they take it too far thus the MMs took it to the point of volume again and not only investors the other MMs step in the make money on the spread.
Alas the poor MM does not get to cover. Now comes various tactics like stalling, boxing, or even locking the Bid and Ask for a while. MMs have a vast resource of tactics and it would take probably more than my lifetime to figure them all out.
So how do investors somehow manage to overcome the obvious deception in OTCBB arena? One answer is indirection trading style by going long which the MMs do not expect. In the war between investors and public companies on the OTC BB vs the MMs, if the MMs have all the advantages due to position or other factors, direct confrontation such as momentum or day
trading hitting the stock is a definite death sentence.
However, an indirect approach tends to weaken the path of least resistance before slowly overcoming it. The most effective way is long-term investors slowly accumulating and holding thus drawing the MMs out of its defenses making them as naked as their short position. This is war so this slow accumulation and holding for the long term easily achieves the desired effect to force MMs to cover and knock off the
tactics or bury themselves deeper.
The MMs when caught will especially use every trick and tactic in the book to get a Bear Raid thus playing on the individual fear of most people. The MMs feel they have information and position advantages over the investors as long as the holding of the stock is in weak hands or
short term holders. Since they are OTC BB MMs who believe all OTCBB companies are not worth investing and management is ineffective regardless what is happening within the company. Furthermore, MMs know they are in the position to impose a great deal of influence in OTC BB stocks trading when it suits their needs.
This inherent power of position enables the MMs to move the markets at any time up or down. As a result, the only way to draw them out of their favorable position is going long. Now this does not mean just any company but to effectively nail the MMs, Longs must find the great company on the floor and accumulate long before the MM tactics and games begin.
This requires extensive research to find such a rare stock, but once you have found it, you are one up on the MMs so be prepared for every tactic in the book.
EFGI is a new MM that showed up today
Is this the first you have seen this MM? If so, that would be two new market makers today? Both from Florida...
Website for the new MM
http://www.capitalgrowthfinancial.com/index.html
If you haven't seen this, you might want to watch it. Jim Cramer talks about Hedge Funds manipulating the market...
I just bought my wife a million shares of her very own and she was very happy!
Thanks MNM, I'm glad to be able to contribute some useful information to this board.
Keep up the great posts and work you have been providing. Nice to see the wide range of knowledge that has developed here.
I know there are some people on this board that are very much aware of the importance of Jack Chang. There are also people new to this board that have no idea of who Mr. Chang is or what he has accomplished. I think it is important for people to know about the company they are investing in. I think Esprit was very fortunate to acquire Jack Chang and someone with his expertise. Just trying to help with providing information!
Only1gail, I'm glad that you are posting on iHub. I think you have brought up some good points and provide useful feedback. I didn't get a chance to say "Welcome" before...
Sorry for the long post about Jack Chang, but I thought it very informative. I hope that all of you do too.
More information on Mr. Jack Chang and his accomplishments:
I know we have posted the links to Jack Changs' resume and biography. I did some additional searching and found some information that I hadn't seen before. Some of it I was aware of, but it never hurts to provide the information for people unaware of who Jack Chang is. Todays PR finalizing the agreement with Mr. Chang was HUGE! Look at the companies he has worked for and with...the businesses that he developed and sold to companies like Citicorp and Olevitti. The companies he has consulted with like Nationsbank (remember BankAmerica Corp was purchased by NationsBank forming Bank of America), Visa, VeriFone, Unisys and Coca Cola. He has connections!
Link to the following: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:mx3WZTW0loAJ:www.secinfo.com/d11Ekh.4f8ap.htm+quadstar+jack+chan...
Mr. Chang has over 25 years of business and technology experience
across multiple industries. He has held key positions in
technology development, marketing, sales, corporate development,
systems integration and management consulting.
Mr. Chang has worked for major international corporations as
employee and consultant, as well as entrepreneur companies,
including several companies he created. He has a degree in
Electronic Engineering, a MBA in Marketing/Sales and had done PhD
studies in MIS.
In early 1970's Mr. Chang worked for the Docutel Corporation in
Dallas, Texas. Starting out in the engineer position, he rose to
become a project manager then Director of R&D then corporate
development. He was involved in developing most of Docutel's
products until 1977. Some of his accomplishments during his
employment with Docutel include:
- Inventor and patent holder of the ATM (Automated Teller Machine)
- Pioneer in the use of magnetic stripe based data on bank cards
- Development of the first high speed card encoding machine
- First person to put ATM's online to financial institutions'
authorization databases
- First person to develop a standalone ATM/POS front-end
switch that can interface to more than one financial institution
for transaction authorization
- Pioneer in putting gasoline dispensers online to
authorization networks
- First person that developed and deployed encryption devices
for bank transaction data In 1974, in addition to heading development
at Docutel, Mr. Chang also was responsible for large account sales.
In that capacity he spearheaded selling entire financial system networks,
instead of just selling ATM terminals. He also sold new applications of
ATM's, such as travelers checks dispensers to American Express
and was instrumental in the sale of over 1,500 ATM's in the U.S.
and Europe.
In 1977, Mr. Chang was offered a consulting assignment to design
and develop an electronic payment transaction switching and
processing system for American Express. He functioned as an
independent consultant for three years developing plans and
implementing electronic banking systems mostly for American
Express, major banks and credit card service providers.
In 1980, Mr. Chang saw a business opportunity of building an ATM
and POS transaction switching and processing systems - an
Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) System. This product was targeted
for financial institutions responding to interstate banking and
banking deregulation. He drafted a design concept and sold the
first EFT switch to Bank of Ohio. After the successful
implementation of the first installation, he was able to acquire
an escalating customer base of financial and retail institutions.
Within three years, Quadstar grew to 150 employees and sold 110
systems worldwide. The systems evolved to include not only EFT
functionality, but also voice response, gasoline dispensing and
credit card authorization needs. In 1984, Mr. Chang sold Quadstar
to its largest customer - Citicorp.
From 1984 to 1987, Mr. Chang was the president of a Citicorp
subsidiary with marketing responsibilities selling Citibank
services, joint ventures and Citicorp owned technologies. In that
capacity, he traveled domestically and internationally working on
high potential opportunities and closing sales with his own
regional sales managers as well as sales managers of other
Citicorp subsidiaries. He developed innovative solutions for
customers who were generally financial institutions and large
retailers with approaches that involved leveraging on and
mobilizing Citicorp's infrastructure, technologies, people
resources, banking and merchant relationships and development
capabilities. Using a revenue-driven approach, he initiated and
helped to enhance Citicorp's transaction delivery capabilities to
include the deployment of satellites, wide area networks,
wireless modems, encryption devices and business-to-business
computer networking.
Mr. Chang was also one of the executives that were continuously
assessing Citicorp's strategic business and marketing
requirements and initiated proactive technology strategies, plans
and implementations to ensure proper and optimized fulfillment of
products and services.
In 1987, after fulfilling his tenure requirement with Citicorp,
Mr. Chang saw the opportunity to use PC's as the engine for bank
teller and platform systems. He then founded Itac Corporation to
develop a GUI based 4GL (4th Generation Language) application
generator and database system. After completion of the
development of the 4GL generator, he and his team, using the 4GL,
created and marketed one of the earliest PC-based bank teller
systems and sold the system to several financial institutions.
In 1990, ISC/Bunker Ramo (later became Olivetti Business Systems)
bought the teller product line from Itac.
Mr. Chang has also performed business process re-design and
management and technology consulting services to Fortune 500
companies. His past consulting work includes:
-Five year strategic operations and technology plan for NationsBank
-A secure Internet-based credit card transaction system for Visa
-Smart Card marketing and deployment strategy for VeriGem
(Joint venture of Verifone and Gemplus)
-Product market and sales strategy for VeriFone, the POS maker
-An electronic payment system marketing, sales and deployment
strategy for Unisys
-Intelligent intranet system for Coca Cola Enterprises
Enterprise network strategies for Deluxe Checks and Ceridian
employer Services
-Data security plans for Deluxe Checks and Ceridian Employer
Services
-Development of an Internet browser-based payroll data
submission system for Ceridian Employer Services
-Wireless strategies for EDS
In 1999, Mr. Chang decided to be involved with only the Internet
technologies and re-incorporated his operation as Global-Vision.
The software products developed under the Global-Vision banner
include:
-High volume Laser printer control systems that can increase
the printing speed and reduce the need for font and image
management for most print processes.
-Knowledge Management Systems that combined the need for
paper printing, Electronic Bill Presentment, information
archiving and viewing.
-Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and Interactive Voice
Response (IVR) Systems - Including integrating CTI/IVR systems
with the Internet.
-Advanced Internet/intranet authoring tools that can
facilitate easy creation of not only sophisticated Web sites but
also intelligent business process workflow systems.
Since late 1999, Global-Vision has also been concentrating in
application of wireless technologies.
Well... I have to head to town, dang! Hope to come back to a close over .0013! Van, I'd love to see it close at .0014 (or more!) Take care everyone and what a great board.
A few things I really liked about todays PR regarding Jack Chang is the fact that Mr. Chang will be in charge of their e-wallet, debit card and ATM services and that he will head that division. The guy that is the co-inventor of the ATM machine is going to head their ATM division.... think about it.
I also like the fact they are letting Mr. Chang stay in California, where he currently resides. That gives Esprit offices on the east and west coast. Great thinking on their part.
Very nice... like to see those upticks
I agree....that is why I said on or around the 15th. Hope you are feeling better today. Happy to see you here this morning!
On or around the 15th of March.
Good morning everyone! A lot of posts to read through this morning. Very glad to see the deal with Mr. Chang has been finalized. That is one big news item I was hoping for. As was stated by others, we were just waiting for the completion of the contract and now it is done, Jack Chang is officially on board and we continue moving forward. If you are new to this board, I suggest that you read the posts that include Jack Changs biography and background. I think you will then realize why we are happy to have the Jack Chang deal completed.
Esprit continues to produce and in my opinion, the train is just starting the engines.
Take care Nathanial, hope you feel better.
I agree. I think the selling has dried up and folks are holding.
Good morning everyone...
I still have the free membership. I have 15 post limit and I didn't have to do anything except join. I think you are upgraded from 3 to 15 after a certain period time or number of posts.
I've been catching up on the posts today. Lots of good information and opinions being provided by this board. Like many have already stated, we are at the bottom or as near the bottom as you can get. In my mind, the risk on the downside is low (already near the bottom) and the upside potential is huge... I plan on watching closely and giving the company time to deliver.
Very interesting reading... thanks for posting it.
I agree. I think the decline in volume over the past few days and a tight range on the trading has shown that the "weak hands", flippers from the .0002-.0006 range, and other sellers have been flushed out and we are getting ready to move up to the next leg.
Any other thoughts or comments?
Hi everyone, just checking in to see how it is going today. I see we are at .0012 right now... I like it! Will check back later.
Hi MNM I posted this earlier in the day.
OT: Did you see the list of 35 Pink Sheet companies that had trading suspended today because of questions that have arisen regarding the adequacy and accuracy of publicly disseminated information? Glad to see that CHNW isn't on the list!
Link: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/suspensions/2007/34-55420.pdf
Thanks... looks like you and nathanial are keeping an eye on things! I'll catch you later today. Keep up the good work you both have been doing.
Good for you... I don't own any on that list either.
Take care and I'll check back later today. Seems pretty quiet today. Low volume morning so far, should be about flushed out and then start heading back up...
Looking forward to that...
OT: Did you see the list of 35 Pink Sheet companies that had trading suspended today because of questions that have arisen regarding the adequacy and accuracy of publicly disseminated information? Glad to see that CHNW isn't on the list!
Link: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/suspensions/2007/34-55420.pdf
Good morning everyone... Just checking in quickly.
Great response....
Someone had commented on this board earlier that they didn't think the new Esprit website looked very professional. http://www.espritfinancialgroup.com
We have to remember that it is currently being developed. We know they are using a California Company to design and build the website and incorporate the virtual sales person. I feel that company is probably W5Internet for the web design. Take a look at some of the websites in their portfolio Link: http://www.w5internet.com/html/examples.html and MVSP for the Virtual Sales Person aspect Link: http://www.mvsp.biz/web_design.html
I base my opinions on these being the companies they are working with to design and build the new Esprit Financial Group website because of the company description in the PRs and the source code for the Esprit site and the w5internet built sites.
I think the final Esprit website will look good, be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) and have proper security. I suggest we wait for the final product to see how it looks and functions.
It was almost a month ago that Mr. Winters presented his open letter to the shareholders. I thought I would take a look at a summary I had done on it to see how he is doing. There was a lot in the letter, so I will focus on the Cash Now Vision and Corporate Activities. Again, these were the "main points" I pulled from the press release.
Feb 9: Garr Winters Cash Now Corporation (CHNW) CEO Open Letter To its Shareholders And An Update On Cash Now Business Developments
(PRESIDENTS MESSAGE).
-Cash Now Vision
--Our goal is to have our Forex Beta site up and running by the end of February Completed Feb. 28th
--Full live trading services are targeted to be live early in the second quarter. Date given April 2, 2007
--We have vital core competencies in Internet delivered financial services to a consumer market Ongoing
--look for additional business opportunities that have the following attributes: Consumer facing, Financial Services, Internet based Ongoing
--Exploring some longer term product opportunities that we have identified during the last few months Yet to be announced
--Short term focus is squarely on developing our Forex trading platform.Ongoing
-Corporate Activity
--Provide shareholders with value Working on it
--Aggressive short trading has hampered stock price Working on it
--Register new corporate name 'Esprit Financial Group Inc.' Completed
--Register new trading symbol Submitted - should be complete around March 15, 2007
--Register new CUSIP number Submitted - should be complete around March 15,2007
--Not currently seeking additional funding for Forex launch Restated several times
--These actions when taken together will force short sellers off their position Working on it
--Will continue to ensure their corporate activites are as transparent as possible Doing it
Does anyone disagree with my thoughts on what they have promised and accomplished, or the current status?
Yup, I keep an eye on it during the day, but I'm planning on giving the company a chance to perform. So far they are doing what they have promised and I keep reminding myself to be patient and that it takes time for acquistions, agreements, website development, software rewrites, etc.... to take place.
Frankly, I'm amazed at how quickly some of the work has come together (although I think quite a bit has been going on prior to being announced). I know what it takes to put together just basic websites and the thought of getting the Forex site up along with all their other platforms is mind boggling. I'm glad I'm just an investor and letting them do all the legwork!
My opinion is that this company needs the time to prove itself and it is well on its way. Like I've stated in other posts, I originally bought in as a "lotto play" and I feel very fortunate to have gotten in when I did (average .0003). I have added some more at .001-.0014 and I feel good about those buys.
KA, have a great time in Vegas! I hope we will all be smiling big when you get back! Have fun, I'm jealous, still have lots of snow in the yard here!
Thanks for your input. I thought the retrace the two days after the runup to .002 hit .0008. I agree, I don't think we will hit .0008 again, but anything is possible. I've put up bid support at .0008 for the past 4 trading days and as we all know, no buys at .0008. At this point, I'm planning on holding unless I see something that concerns me. At the present time, there is just too many positive things happening that I'm very comfortable giving this company a chance to prove itself.