I don't believe the CEO and the company were involved in the earlier paid promotions. Those paid promotions, the run up in the stock and its eventual collapse back down in a very short time, could possibly have been part of a greater plan to stop this company in its tracks before it could land a big contract.
I am not going to say that is what happened, I don't know. I just like to take every possible scenario into account. I never watch the news or the market with anything but the most critical eye and I always ask myself Cui Bono (Who Benefits?). The below is all theoretical and is not even necessarily what I believe but I will not rule out anything.
ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE FOLKS DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. IN THE INTEREST OF FULL DISCLOSURE I OWN A VERY SMALL POSITION IN THIS STOCK SO SMALL I CAN AFFORD TO LOSE IT ALL BUT I AM HOPING TO SEE THIS GO UP AND BE SOMETHING. PLEASE INVEST WISELY AND WITHIN YOUR RISK TOLERANCE.
This is a HIGHLY COMPETITIVE market, just like the Reuters article stated.
WHAT IF (THEORETICAL):
a) Competitors saw that this company was making progress on long coming plans to try and build a processing plant that might make a dent in their profits. Here's this upstart, small company being named a top 50 emerging growth company, looking to play with the big boys. And make no doubt this is big business up there, something to be protected.
b) COMPETITORS paid for promotions to overhype actual news. I have seen some messages kicking around that literally MILLIONS of emails went out pumping this stock. If any of you got some of those emails, look at the bottom to see how much was paid for them.
c) Short sellers swarmed in, view this as a "pump and dump". A lot of negative posting starts - the whole "friggin barn" thing. Short sellers have their own motives, separate from competitors. Competitors knew this would happen.
d) Trading volume reached very impractical levels for such a small, relatively unheard of company - around 80 million one day.
e) Naturally local authorities were concerned - that level of volume is just not natural for a small company in rural Canada. They stepped in to curb this volume by issuing the halt & cease trade orders while investigating this bizarre volume and who is behind the paid promos causing this.
f) A number of investors got spooked by the crazy volume and the BCSC halt & cease trade orders and the thing starts to look like a scam.
g) a hatchet piece is put out in Reuters, which has never covered this company before, with the party line being towed - too competitive to get into this market, overproduction, nothing to see here folks, move along.
h) this latest news is not accompanied by a paid pump. True invesotrs are expecting the stock to go up on this news. Competitors have bought a lot of shares and have a hired gun market maker selling the stock off to keep the stock price down.
Alright, admittedly that's a conspiracy theory but can anyone argue that the above is not FEASIBLE.
The moral of the story - keep eyes open. Don't accept everything you read, see or hear. Have an open mind about what could or couldn't be happening behind the scenes.