Permanent Tech (PERT) Followup: Caveat Emptor

Published February 26th, 2008 in Trading Tags: caveat emptor, due diligence, financial information, fraudulent activity, mitopharm, otc bulletin board stocks, Permanent Technologies, PERT, pink sheets, promoters, pump and dump, spam campaign, stock promotion, stock spam email, toxic label.

caveat emptor otcbb toxic label pert Well that was fast.

I happened to check up on the scam du jour only to notice that Pink Sheets has slapped it with a TOXIC label:

Buyer Beware. There is a public interest concern associated with the company, which may include a spam campaign, questionable stock promotion, known investigation of fraudulent activity committed by the company or insiders, regulatory suspensions, or disruptive corporate actions. During the time it is labeled Caveat Emptor, any stock that is not in the Current Information category will also have its quotes blocked on pinksheets.com.

Looks like the promoters didn’t get their money’s worth before the stock collapsed under its own weight:

PERT permanent technologies followup

Notice how the sudden fall was followed by a continuous decline in volume? Well, except for that massive spike a few days later. The volume pattern is now one of disinterest as this penny stock fades away.

A lot of good it did them to fill inboxes with email spam touting this POS. The red arrow shows when I wrote about PERT’s pump and dump. Calling the implosion of these kinds of stocks is as sporting as dynamiting fish in a lake.

So why can’t you sell short OTC bulletin board stocks? Would such blatant pump and dump schemes proliferate if unobstructed short selling was allowed?

Short answer: no