The primary goal of this paper is to assess the impact of microcap stock promotion campaigns on stock volume and price. This study uses a sample of 81 stock touting emails sent by promotion companies to potential investors in 2009. Each promotion is matched with its corresponding touted stock, and the daily volumes and prices for each stock are analyzed for a period following the promotion. Using this empirical data, this research shows a significant (and in many cases drastic) increase in both stock volumes and prices on the day of and days following a promotion. In the long term however, volumes returns to normal (pre-promotion volume), and prices decrease to levels lower than their pre-promotion prices. The evidence is presented under the section labeled “Findings”. In-depth explanation on how the study is conducted as well as additional information related to the data can be found in the section “Data Description/Method”.
This paper also details the microcap stock promotion industry and explains the economics behind the business. Included is information on who hires the promotion companies and their reasons for doing so, the operations and profitability of the promotion companies, the frequency of stock touting cases, the manipulation methods involved, and the risks of prosecution by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Background
Promotion Companies
Each year hundreds of publicly trading companies, either directly or indirectly through large shareholders, hire stock promotion companies (or investment newsletters as many refer to themselves as) to “promote” or “tout” their stocks. The promotion companies’ job is to attract unsuspecting and naive investors to purchase the promoted stocks. This allows the hir...
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...doesn’t work out “as planned”. They act as if their stock touts come from the goodness of their hearts.
Other schemes employed by promoters (and the promoters’ hirers) include closing price manipulation, wash trading, and message board spamming The illegal practice of closing price manipulation (also known as “painting the tape”) is a way for promoters to push a stock’s closing price to an artificially higher level. Promoters might use this tactic to make a certain stock “green” for the day (close at higher price than the previous day’s close), when in reality it should have appeared negative for the day (close lower than the previous day’s close), thus making the stock more attractive to investors. It is important for promoters to present a certain image of a stock to investors—often that means manipulating prices in a way that appeals to an investor’s psyche.
The threat of online competitors is also present to every discount broker that has not switched to online trading or chooses to remain with their current business model and not offer online services. These online trading sites have unique trading capabilities that otherwise are not present at Edward Jones. They offer sound advice on stocks and other investments instantly. Each customer has to call their Edward Jones advisor in order to place a trade. This makes sense to Edward Jones because they want to help prevent the rash decisio...
This case discusses the unique value proposition of Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), which used academic research to create specialized portfolios focused on Small Capitalization companies. Their investment philosophy particularly focused on research by Fama and French and Banz. They researched how small cap companies tend to outperform large cap companies over time. In addition, FDA created an additional competitive advantage by created trading efficiencies to reduce transaction cost.
Ponzi schemes are a continuing problem in the investment world and can only be stopped if the Securities and Exchange Commission does better safe guarding investors’ money. This paper will address Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and how he was able to steal billions of dollars from investors. The reasons why the SEC responded so slowly to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and what can be done in the future to make sure another Ponzi scheme of this magnitude does not happen again. Also included in this paper will be examples of good and bad leadership theories.
Weiner, Eric J. “What Goes Up: The Uncensored History of Modern Wall Street as Told by the Bankers, Brokers, CEOs, and Scoundrels who Made it Happen”. Little, Brown and Company. pp. 188–192. Print.
Stocks an easy way to gain money but also a fast way to blow it all in my AG economics class we were given a task to perform and it was to gain money in the stock market. The middle class only makes 25,000 to 100,000 a year and to have the chance to learn how to flip that and double that money is skill evey one should know. I was given the chance to do and play around with fake money on the internet to learn how to manage stocks and manipulate them. Our teacher gave us a login to a game called the stock market game where we had to choose certain stock to see which ones would do better and if any of our stocks would crash. The game only let us choose from the New York Stock Exchange so the market wasn’t a wide variety of the whole market but it gave a small understanding of what it feels like to cash in or to be sitting in the dog house.
Before being cultivated with cocaine and hookers as the key to success in Wall Street, Jordan Belfort demonstrated the incontrovertible advantages of positive business communications. One of which pertains to the effectiveness of corresponding with customers over the telephone. Especially for stockbrokers, having a conversation over the phone is pivotal when trying to sell a stock to a potential investor. Jordan Belfort began his process with a potential client by stating his name, where he was from, and what he had to offer. This was a method of gaining the trust of a customer that he did not know. Furthermore, he engaged the customer with an optimistic attitude and stated how the stock could affect him or her in the best way possible. Jordan coul...
The timing of an IPO is crucial. Within the next twelve months, XYZ INC. plans to open its doors to go pu...
Penny stocks are also full of drama – just because they are not discussed by media, people don’t know them.
But since the latter part of the 1960’s, stricter enforcement of insider trading practices has been put into place because of financial scandals. The first to be discussed is a concrete definition of “insider trading” as it is discussed in this essay. According to the “European Communities 1989 Insider Dealing Directive”, insider trading is the dealing on the basis of materials, unpublished, price-sensitive information possessed as a result of one’s employment. (Insider Trading)” Ivan Boesky pleaded guilty to the biggest insider-trading scheme discovered by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He made $200 million by profiting from stock-price volatility in corporate mergers.
Muller, J., Welch, D., & Greene, J. (2000, September 18). Businessweek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. Businessweek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. Retrieved April 17, 2011, from http://www.businessweek.com
Wall Street in the 1980s had big competition among the brokers to make money in legal and illegal ways. Although, making money was easy and quick, but nothing can compare to Bud’s guilty feelings. Bud causes loss of
The wealthy rule the world through manipulations. One way the wealthy manipulate society is through Wall Street, or the stock market. Brokers persuade clients to invest in stocks for prices that are way above their comfort zone. They then turn around and collect fees from those lofty sales. It is a deceitful game that only the fit and callous wins. This happens in “Broiler Room” when Seth cleans a doctor out of his life savings, and destroys his marriage by selling him a stock that didn’t exist. He continued to mislead his clients for his own greedy gain. We see in the movie “Boiler Room”, a mismanagement of fees and broker abuse that is parallel to our lives today (Younger, Todd, & Todd, 2001). A as matter of fact, according to John Bellamy’s article, a poll revealed that 71 percent of the public believes that limits should be imposed on the compensation of Wall Street executives (Foster & Holleman, 2010).
Before being cultivated with cocaine and hookers as the key to success in Wall Street, Jordan Belfort demonstrated the incontrovertible advantages of positive business communications. One of which pertains to the effectiveness of corresponding with customers over the telephone. Especially for stockbrokers, having a conversation over the phone is pivotal when trying to sell a stock to a potential investor. Jordan Belfort begins his process with a potential client by stating his name, where he was from, and what he had to offer. This is a method of gaining the trust of a customer that he does not know. Furthermore, he engaged the customer with an optimistic attitude and stated how the stock could affect him or her in the best way possible. By providing the customer with onl...
Have you ever invested in the stock market? If so, do you know where your money is really going? The stock market is a risky business and it can make or break people’s lives. The stock market is used daily to keep America on its trembling feet; it’s also being used at this very moment to cheat people out of money for personal gain. This happens every day in the stock market and its evolving rapidly, super computers that can trade faster than a blink of an eye, social media trends that can predict share values, and intricate stock market schemes that are getting harder and harder to find and take down.
By influencing the market falsely is unethical and wrong. That is also why their punishment was so harsh.