It's probably been nearly twenty five years since my broker called to find out if I knew why the volume and price were up dramatically in a biotech I was invested in. This broker was a friend of the CEO of the company, and he'd called him to see if he knew.
At that time, brokerages were not permitted to use the internet, and while the company had access, they hadn't found what was causing the interest that day. The broker called me because he knew I had the net, and if I had the time, I could research what was going on there.
It took me perhaps 30 minutes to find a stock newsletter that had recommended the company. I won't call it a pump and dump per say, the writer of the letter hadn't staged it to be released at a specific time for days, or weeks, as a P&D would d o, but enough people followed this biotech advisory that price and volume increased dramatically on the issuance of the newsletter.
I'm sure that besides the couple of sites I try to read routinely their are others where 0WCP might be mentioned, perhaps it would be promoted, and yes, perhaps such promotion could move the price up. I don't know of any of these sites being P&D's where the site for at least a few days promotes the idea that on a given day at a given time they'll announce a new selection.
Here on I-Hub, on I-Village, on Silicon Investor, etc their are boards where certain investors make buy, and/or sell recommendations. I don't consider them P&D's, but most certainly the author benefits from others following the advise. Why? Simple, they buy the stock before writing others to buy, and they sell the stock before telling others to sell. This doesn't guarantee a profit, but if followers generally move the stock a few percentage points based on the high volume, the author of the article has a built in advantage.
For the most part, these authors are short term traders, holding positions for days or weeks, but not generally months and years. Many investors congratulate the author on say a 10% gain short term, but if they look at their own gain on trading on the advice, it might be 5% or less, perhaps not even a gain at all, after considering commissions. The point is, they may do well, but the author will do better.
For those who believe that we're still a P&D, please provide links to whoever is establishing the P&D.
Gary
