Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[loanranger]

A closer look at the Streetwise compensation issue reveals a bit of tricky language.

The Disclosure on the bottom of the page says that "Cellceutix Corp. is a sponsor of Streetwise Reports" and "By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer" and provides a link to the disclaimer. The disclaimer itself says "Monthly sponsorship fees range from $1,000 to $3,000 per month."

That's plain enough.

But this Disclosure is less plain:
"Directors, officers, employees or members of their families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise during the up-to-four-week interval from the time of the interview until after it publishes."

The implication is that there can be a period of up to four weeks between the date of the interview and the date of its publication but in fact the indicated persons are only precluded from trading the shares during that period however long it happens to be. The "up-to-four week" phrase has no meaning at all in terms of limiting trading activity by those insiders.

In the case of this particular article we can see that it carries the byline:
" Source: Staff of The Life Sciences Report (3/23/16) "

The last sentence of the first paragraph reads:
" The series of press releases on three different Cellceutix experimental drugs put a charge in the stock, sending it upward in a matter of a few days by more than 57% to a high of $1.81/share on Tuesday, March 21. "


We aren't told when the interview was done. Personally I don't think that The Life Sciences Report would conduct an interview with a CEO only to sit on it.


The point here is related to the objectivity of Streetwise/The Life Sciences Report. If an interview is done and an article published shortly thereafter there is nothing in the disclaimer preventing the publishers insiders from buying the shares on the morning of the day of an afternoon interview.
That's quite a buying opportunity. If they were to avail themselves of it does anyone think that any negative information gleaned in the interview (should any have actually been provided) would get published?


If the write-up was presented as an ADVERTISEMENT there wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't. I haven't seen anyone here express any view that might suggest that it is anything other than an objective piece of journalism. The question that the compensation issue raises is "Is it really?"