What is a "Gagged" Transfer Agent?
-A 'Transfer Agent' is a company's means of managing shareholder records, issuing and canceling stock certificates, and processing investor mailings. Some companies can act as their own transfer agent, but most often, especially with penny stocks, the job is outsourced to companies specializing in the business. Transfer agents are normally the most accurate, and often the only way of finding the current O/S, A/S, and float for a penny stock. Some will require a fax with shareholder details to retrieve the information, others simply a phone call or email. This type of transparency is desirable among investors.
A "Gagged" transfer agent is one which has been instructed by the company they are working for to not release information, such as the share structure. This is usually NOT a good situation. There is no legitimate reason for a company to gag their TA. It is almost always done to hide dilution. Some TA's, however, have a policy against releasing share structure information. The reasoning behind this is to keep the thousands of penny stock traders from bogging down their business with requests for information. Unfortunately this forces the shareholder to contact the company for information. While this isn't as bad as a company specifically gagging their TA, it still isn't an ideal scenario. Whether the company sought out this TA because of this policy, or it was a coincidence, is up for debate.
Without knowing the current number of outstanding shares, an investor has no idea if shares are being sold by the company. Concurrently, without knowing the number of authorized shares, the number of shares that can possibly be sold is not known either. Companies that practice this scam will often issue press releases, or other investor communication containing excuses for having the TA gagged. Unknowing investors will buy these up, and continue holding shares, or even buying more. We do not recommend touching a stock with a gagged TA, unless you are experienced with penny stocks, and it is purely a short term momentum play.
(posted by Chasing Stars)
