Great post by BioHedge over at the swamp this morn
Post# of 72440
Stock manipulation and IPIX. As I've followed the company and stock over the past five years it has been interesting to see a significant disconnect of the share-price as compared to company fundamentals.
If there is a coordinated short and distort effort going on then I don't think it would be impossible to prove. Case in point, one of my partners had a rouge trader who started trying to make extra money on the side by aggressively shorting companies in conjunction with writing and publishing false research and opinion pieces (including using aliases on investors chat boards). This went on for several years until the CFO of one company got serious and hired a team of forensic technologists and investigators to see if they could prove, what they felt was stock manipulation.
All I can say is the data presented to my partner, by the CFO and technologists, was breathtaking in scope and detail. Over a years time, the investigators were able identify the rouge trader, his contacts and others who he's roped into the scheme. They had home and business addresses, phone numbers, email and IP data, conversations cross-linked and referenced. This trader had even set up false stock registrations in Europe to manipulate the shares, it was a pretty slick operation.
Luckily for my partner, the trader didn't use company time or assets while conducting his side business so my partners firm wasn't culpable (which was why he was confronted with the data). His firm did end up paying some trivial fine because of lack of oversight but it didn't bring down the firm. However, the trader is in much worse shape. Given the evidence he was immediately terminated, and from what I understand, the feds pressed charges under some sort of anti-racketeering and money laundering laws. This guy and his associates lives have been destroyed and many are facing significant jail time in a Federal penitentiary. Add to that the civil suit brought by the affected company and now other short and distort targets are filling their own lawsuits. This kid is going to spend the rest of his life in jail or a court room which is probably deserved given the damage he did to legitimate companies.
This trader was smart and careful but there is always someone smarter and if they have resources and are more motivated, one will get caught. Humans just aren't capable of not making traceable mistakes over time.
I wouldn't be shocked if this type of scenario is playing out at IPIX. There are just too many "posters" and researchers who continue to hammer the same inane points. Hell with the damage that Mako and his associates have caused me, it might be well worth my time and money to hire this same firm to do some digging. Anyway, I'll be interested to see how this plays out. Either way, I think in six months we'll have our answer.