According to an e-mail that has just arrived, I am going to be filthy rich.
How rich? The next column will be datelined THE BEACH, TAHITI. Headlined ‘Eat Your Heart Out, Bill Gates.’ It will provide in-depth coverage of the deepening recession – a bikini contest. Grumpy Al Greenspan won’t get a single line. Ditto that broke vacuum cleaner company, Fantom Technologies, whose stock can stay halted forever.
Of course, the next column will also pay tribute to the nice people at Financial Freedom Report who took time out from their busy day writing stock newsletters to e-mail the Ticket to Tahiti.
The e-mail’s subject line hollered: “This stock will make you rich!!!”
Say, these guys sure know how to get right to the exclamation point. “Soon you will be thanking us for your newly found financial freedom!” said the newsletter. “We are spoonfeeding you an opportunity to make a ton of money.”
This exclusive tip (OK, the disclaimer did say something about somebody being paid $500 to e-mail it to 400,000 people) is Wireless Synergies, which plays in the market’s bush leagues – on the U.S. over-the-counter bulletin board (OTCBB). According to the newsletter, Wireless Synergies is still a screaming buy. It does appear to have arrived a tad late, having curiously spiked 227 per cent to $2.45 in the two days before it surfaced here after days of zero volume. Of the zillion or so newsletter tips that clog up the e-mail, this one boasts the most exclamation points. And it even knows the stock “will be AT LEAST $5 in the next 120 days – and then so much higher!”
“And call for a free trail (trial?),” adds the newsletter.
See, they’re so busy making people stinking rich that they don’t even have time to check their spelling.
Of course, there are no guarantees, so it’s entirely possible that Wireless Synergies might not be the ticket, particularly considering I don’t own the stock.
Although it may appear so, not all newsletters promise instant wealth.
For instance, StreetSignal.com, a relatively modest-mannered small-cap newsletter based in Lanny McDonald Country – Hanna, Alta. – doesn’t even use exclamation marks and has a novel approach to boot. It does actual research. And if you’d been playing their picks since July, you’d be sitting pretty with a 34-per-cent gain while most markets have tanked 10 to 20 per cent.
For the past four months, StreetSignal, which sends two free e-mails per week and also offers a premium service for $108 a year, has focused exclusively on bottom fishing for cash-rich Nasdaq small caps that have been beaten to a pulp, buying nine of them, including eight winners. StreetSignal’s high flier has been SeeBeyond Technologies, which it bought at $2 in mid-September and sold at $5.10 recently.
Now, there’s a Tahiti treat – a 155-per-cent win.
* STREET TALK: Is Peter Linder, oil and gas analyst with Research Capital, bullish or what?
“Last week we wrote: ‘Load up on these (gas-weighted) stocks before you see snow on the ground,’ ” writes Linder in a report. “Yesterday, there was snow on the ground in Calgary. It’s not too late though as there is still no snow in Toronto where the serious money resides!”
* LAUGHING OUT LOUD: Cliff Asness, fund manager at $1.3-billion AQK Capital in New York, ominously notes the price-earnings ratio on the Standard & Poor 500 Index is at 28, its richest valuation except for two periods – the market madness of Nov. ’99 to March 2000 and just prior to the Oct. 1929 Crash. Poking fun at a boob-tube stock market, Asness says: “I imagine the head of CNBC saying: ‘You provide the pictures and I’ll provide the bull market.’ ”
* CALL RIPLEY’S: Believe it or not, as of Oct. 26, historically the market’s worst month, Calgary’s wireless twins rose from the canvas and punched the bear in the snout. Cell-Loc tripled. Wi-Lan doubled.
* CHEERS: To Arlene Dickinson, president of Venture Communications, who has earned kudos as Calgary’s small business owner of the year.
* JEERS: To baseball’s bull market – ex-Calgary Cannon Tino Martinez and the Damn Yankees.
* SAGE ADVICE: “You know why great companies fail? Suddenly, one morning, their chief asset becomes their chief liability.” - John Roth, CEO of Nortel Networks (before the Nortel crash).
HOT ALBERTA STOCK: Matrikon Inc.
MTK-TSE $1.68
Up 38 cents (+29.2%) on 14,900 shares (for week ending Oct. 26)
Matrikon surged on stellar financial results showing rapid growth in a weakening economy. The Edmonton-based company, which provides supply-chain management software solutions, boasted revenue of $27.7 million for the fiscal year 2001 (ended Aug. 31), an increase of 45 per cent over the $19.1 million achieved in the same period the previous year when the company was private. Net earnings were $952,000 or five cents a share.
COLD ALBERTA STOCK: Biomira Inc.
BRA-TSE $6.30
Down $1.27 (-16.8%) on 504,100 shares (for week ending Oct. 26)
Investors have turned their back on biotech stocks and few have taken a worse hit than Biomira, down 61 per cent from its year high. The latest selloff was precipitated by the resignation of COO Mark Young, effective Dec. 31. Biomira develops innovative therapies for cancer management.
