AGIJ, THRA, APKN – Pump And Dump Alerts August 12, 2011
Welcome to Pump and Dump Friday, where every week we highlight a few of the bogus promotions that are going on in penny stocks.
If you dont know how these scams work, be sure to check out this free report that exposes the whole thing.
Without further ado, here are this weeks disasters waiting to happen:
Axia Group (AGIJ)
Of course, during one of the most volatile weeks ever in the markets, the Pump & Dumpers are out in force. They take all the credit when the stock goes up and blame the markets when they fall.
Funny thing is, some of these companies shouldnt even be trading!
Take for example the Axia Group. At one point, they were filing reports with the SEC, then they suddenly stopped. The most recent data on the company is over eight months old and its not very impressive.
Their end of year 2010 balance sheet (again the most recent stuff out there) shows this companys a black hole sucking down cash.
They reported a whopping $7,617 in cash and $109,322 in liabilities.
But the shocking number was their shareholders equity deficit. Its like a running total of the company earnings Axia Group reports a deficit of $25,467,780.
Yep, you read that right over $25 million in losses.
The really scary part of this story isnt the company its the fact that someone paid OTC Reporter a whopping $190,000 to pump this stock.
I do have to give it to them the stock did double in value for all of about 12 seconds. The price jumped from a whopping $0.0002 to $0.0004 before plummeting in value again.
I dont know about you, but Im not going to risk my life savings on a stock that trades for fractions of a penny, with a company behind on filings and reporting a questionable set of financials.
This is truly buyer beware!
THERMA-MED (THRA)
This is an exciting pick brought to us by the pumpers at Hot OTC China. Now, I know not every company can have stellar numbers but hopefully, they can identify a business with a future!?!
Unfortunately, THRA doesnt have much of a future ahead.
The pumper was paid oh, I dont know $85,000 to promote this company. Yes, there it is, right in the disclaimer. $85 Grand to hype another empty company.
I looked closely at THRA and unfortunately I looked right through it too!
The company doesnt have any filings with the SEC. And what I did find online was less than exciting.
Lets start with the CEO Mr. Suarez is running the company and he paid himself a whopping 200 million shares of stock. Thats for three months worth of work (just in case you were curious).
Oh I did a little math for you.
At the current stock price, the CEOs making $300,000 a quarter. Thats a stunning $1.2 million a year (assuming his pay keeps pace)!
Dont worry though theres plenty more stock where that came from.
So for the CEOs hard work he must have closed a big deal, made a big sale, or revolutionized the industry right?!?
Not so much
Lets start with the cash its my favorite thing in the world after all. Well, it looks like our CEO has overdrawn their checking account. They have a negative cash balance of $53!
But dont worry, their revenue for the quarter ending March of 2011 was flat.
FLAT OUT NOTHING!
Thats right, ZERO revenue for the first quarter in case youre curious, that was the same revenue number from a year ago too! Probably a bunch of other quarters as well, but I didnt bother checking.
Oh, but wait, it gets better (or worse if you work for this company) the company has a going concern statement. That means the accountants dont think it will survive the next year!
Kind of scary!
But dont worry Im sure the CEO will pay himself another 200 million shares for all his hard work. I mean it is tough living on just $300k a quarter, overdrawing the company bank account and not making a single sale.
I dont think this is what they meant by invest alongside the management team!
Airprotek International (APKN)
OK This just makes me mad.
The pumpers are now hyping a company who doesnt have anything current on file with the SEC. And there hasnt been a peep out of the company for almost an entire year! But thats not what makes me mad.
What Im mad about is the recent flimsy press release the company puts out and how the stock jumps on the news!?!
It must have been some big announcement right WRONG!
The announcement was simply the introduction of a merger candidate? I have no idea what that means. Anyone who knows anything about corporate M&A will tell you this is the last thing you want to do in a deal.
You dont ever announce youre about to do a deal with a company… you only announce a deal once its done.
The problem is, as a buyer you risk drumming up competing bids. And that might mean youre forced to pay more.
As a seller, you dont want the deal announced either because it backs you into a corner and may force your hand in doing a deal.
Worst of all, any corporate attorney worth his salt will tell you never to announce a deal until you have some kind of agreement in place.
This press release shows me neither management nor their advisors have a clue what they are doing and thats never a good thing.
I see this press release and the pump and dump promotions as a horrible attempt to hype the company and the stock.
And I see right through their shenanigans.
Stay away from this hyped deal and this stock. Heres why even if a deal is in the works, you have no idea what the terms are. It could be a deal that favors one group of shareholders over the other.
It could be a deal that destroys the capital structure or has such crazy requirements that its certain to fall apart. It could be a deal that makes the stock worthless!
There are so many risks right now, only idiots would be buying.
A final word (and warning).
So that takes care of a few of this weeks inglorious pump and dumps.
Remember, theres a lot more of this going on each week than we highlight here.
As you know, penny stocks are a great place to invest your money. You just have to do your due diligence to stay away from all the scams out there these days!
Until next time,
Brian Walker
Category: Pump & Dump Alerts
