Watching for pump and dumpers Although I have pri

Watching for pump and dumpers

Although I have primarily dealt with stock bashers, one equally deceitful gang of crooks are the stock pumpers. I am sure that everyone here has gotten an email with the latest guaranteed winner, got a PM enticing you to load up on an impending news release, read a rumor that will send a stock up another 500%, and felt the hard sale on getting involved ASAP!!!!

I don't play the news or rumors game, and it goes against my style to place much consideration on what anyone is trying to sell me. I just focus on reading the technicals and keep scanning the charts for plays.

However, if you are one to play the hype I highly advise that you visit these  resources.

1.  http://www.pumpsanddumps.com This website keeps an ongoing catalog of stocks that are currently getting pumped. If you got a stock tip from someone, do yourself a favor and see if it is on this list of heavily promoted stocks. They have some good information but I completely disagree with them on 3 things, the existence of bashers, the prevalence of short selling, and the inability to chart penny stocks. I have dealt with the first two personally and can point to specific instances in 3 stocks I've played in the past month. As for not being able to chart penny stocks? Most people do not know how to use charts or technical analysis to begin with, so I think that a more accurate statement would be that most people can not chart pennies. However, I use charts for 90% of my trading here in penny land for multiple profitable trades so it can be done.

2.  http://newsletter.hotstocked.com/ This is actually meant to be a website for people who play promo stocks to jump in on the action. However, I am not one to play a stock purely because it is being promoted. If it happens to get promoted after I took a position, I am all for it but quite honestly this can be used as a contrarian indicator for stocks that have rallied.

3.  http://www.timothysykes.com/ I knew Tim long before he got a piece of the limelight on Wall Street Warriors and his career really took off. He specializes in shorting penny stocks and he's the best in the business at that strategy. He actually teaches people how to identify likely overhyped scam companies and how to short them. He is pretty forthright on both technical and fundamental reasons for a short, unlike the typical bashers who just sit there and wail on a stock on the message boards 15 times a day every day week after week.

I haven't gotten into penny stock shorting yet, but I definitely find it useful to monitor the pumping of other stocks so that I may learn and avoid becoming a victim of such a shenanigan. However, I think that at some point I'll be playing the Tim Sykes' style of fading the hype. Long or short, at the end of the day I just want to be on the right side of the trade.