Pump-and-dump scheme

[RikaKazak]

how much money is required to actually do one of these things?

are we talking like a couple million? or are we talking like 10's of millions?

(on the smallest scale possible that is)

[Esection]

http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/rbb/risd/Lebed.html

really awesome article about that kid written by the author of Liar's Poker.

[SlowHabit]

[ QUOTE ]
http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/rbb/risd/Lebed.html

really awesome article about that kid written by the author of Liar's Poker.

[/ QUOTE ]
A+.

Would read again.

[hawk59]

Yeah it was Lebed, looks like my numbers may have been off. He was a frosh when I was a senior, but he was always thought to be the most likely to do some columbine style attack. He got picked on unlike anybody I have ever seen and he got in a bunch of trouble at one point because he had a website with the pictures of everyone he planned on killing from our school. A really weird kid.

[CrushinFelt]

I liked this:

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"People who trade stocks, trade based on what they feel will move and they can trade for profit. Nobody makes investment decisions based on reading financial filings. Whether a company is making millions or losing millions, it has no impact on the price of the stock. Whether it is analysts, brokers, advisors, Internet traders, or the companies, everybody is manipulating the market. If it wasn't for everybody manipulating the market, there wouldn't be a stock market at all. . . ."


[/ QUOTE ]

[spider]

Michael Lewis is so awesome, I wish I could come up with stuff like this: "It can take years of slogging to learn how to feign respect for hollow authority."

[ChromePony]

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I got a text message about week ago at 1AM for a different penny stock, checked the next day and it jumped something insane like 30%. It seems amazing that people fall for this stuff, or maybe its just those who know whats going on and want to go along for the ride. Either way, it seems like going along for the ride would have been pretty profitable on this one, as long as you get in early in the day.

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did you not read my story? Stay away from these things..

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Well yeah, I stayed away and will continue to do so...I'm just saying I'm amazed that it actually even kinda works.

I just can't imagine how stupid you would have to be to genuinely believe and trust your money to a 1AM text message from no return number.

It seems like the majority of the people who buy would be 'smart' ones, who realize whats going on and try to capitalize. Obviously they can't be that smart either though cause even without SEC intervention a whole lot of them are getting screwed as well.

[DonButtons]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/rbb/risd/Lebed.html

really awesome article about that kid written by the author of Liar's Poker.

[/ QUOTE ]
A+.

Would read again.

[/ QUOTE ]

indeed. sick read.

[cbloom]

Pretty much every bank was doing the exact same thing in the dot-com boom. All you have to do is coat your pump&dump in a thin veil of reputability and you can totally get away with it.

I'm sure there are short term swells any time Cramer shouts about some stock which are totally tradeable.

Basically I think the kid is somewhat right in his letter to the SEC; at least partially right, and certainly right about some parts of the market and some times.

Actually I think the whole idea that "pump and dump" is illegal is pretty questionable. I mean CEO's spout garbage all the time about how great their company is in order to get their stock price up. There's no general legal requirement to tell the truth in the media, but there is for securities.

[Moonshine]

there's a really interesting cs paper written by some kid at harvard floating around out there on the internet. I'm too lazy to search for it but it's damn cool