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OTCBB Company – Patriot Scientific – Announces Cash Dividend

Posted by AGORACOM at 7:35 PM on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

Today’s announcement by Patriot Scientific is the very reason I started this blog recently.  Specifically, a great example of a real OTCBB company, as opposed to the junk we are forced to hear about via stock spam campaigns.

Patriot announced that it will issue a cash dividend of $0.02 per share of common stock for shareholders and qualified warrant holders of record as of March 6, 2007. The dividend is payable April 9, 2007.  The news drove PTSC up 29% on about 5.5 million shares of volume.  Even if you bought PTSC at the close of trading today, that still amounts to a 2.6% yield.

Comments from Chairman and CEO David Pohl indicate this probably won’t be the last dividend payment to investors:

“We want our shareholders to participate in our share of the revenues generated by our jointly owned MMP Patent Portfolio,” said David Pohl, chairman and CEO of Patriot Scientific Corporation. “In furtherance of this philosophy, our board of directors has now adopted a policy of paying a dividend every six months, subject each time to a determination by the board that payment of a dividend would then be reasonable and prudent in light of the financial condition of the company, other possible applications of the company’s available resources, and relevant business considerations,” Pohl stated.

Congratulations to Patriot Scientific investors and – more importantly – thanks for demonstrating to the world that great quality can be found in the small and micro-cap world.

Best,
George

Suspicious Trading Patterns Of Shell Companies

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:12 PM on Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

David Feldman of the Reverse Merger Blog has some great pointers about shell companies that suddenly start to trade heavy volumes on little or no news.  He spefically mentiones the following 3 time periods:

  • Before Any Announcement
  • After Announcing an LOI or Agreement
  • After Closing A Merger

If you’ve ever been left holding the bag, or don’t ever want to be left holding the bag, take 5 minutes to review his article.

Regards,
George
 

Majescor Uranium Deal Rockets Stock 48% on 12,000,000 + Shares

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:01 PM on Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

Small-cap uranium deals continue to see massive gains. Today’s latest star is Majescor Resources that gained more than 48% on more than 12,000,000 shares traded.  That is not a typo.  Here is the Yahoo Finance Canada summary:

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MAJ.V

The PDAC Conference (March 4-7 in Toronto) is the biggest mining conference in the world and will no doubt display some great fireworks displays in the Uranium space.

Regards,
George

How To Avoid Losing Your Money To Scam Small-Cap, Micro-Cap Stocks – 7 Fast Tips

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:54 AM on Sunday, February 18th, 2007

Good morning. Despite vast sources of education and research on the web, staggering amounts of money are being invested and lost in scam stocks. This space is a great one to invest in and profit from if you use some common sense techniques, however, many investors are still treating investments like the craps table at Bellagio and just laying down bets without much thinking involved. My anecdotal research tells me much of this can be attributed to just plain laziness.

As such, here are 7 sure fire techniques to help you spot and avoid a scam stock in under 5 minutes:

  1. Filing Financial Statements – Good companies file quarterly and annual financial statements with the SEC (www.Edgar.com ) or OSC (www.SEDAR.com). If you have found a company that doesn’t file, run.
  2. Bad People – People who run pump and dump scams usually have a history of doing so. Take 5 minutes to Google officers and directors of any small/micro you are planning to invest in. Add on terms such as “fine” “penalty” “complaint” to improve the result. If someone pops up, run.
  3. Commercial Acceptance – If a company is achieving $1,000,000 in annualized revenues, then they have achieved commercial acceptance and stand a good chance of creating a good company. Less than that and they haven’t proven themselves yet. It doesn’t mean the company is necessarily a scam but it does mean you are running the risk they never get sales off the ground.
  4. Stock Spam – If the company is engaged in stock spam, then chances are you have just run into a pump and dump. Check sites such as SpamNation which reports on stock spam on a daily basis. One caveat, there are several occasions when companies are unknowingly spammed by investors who have taken a position in the open market and trying to promote it via spam. Check and see if the company has issued a public statement disavowing any connection to it.
  5. Sniff Test – A big part of investing in this space is common sense. This is due to the fact very little media and analyst coverage exists in the space for investors to rely on. As such, you need to run the following sniff tests. First, if a company is introducing a “revolutionary” product, is it something you would buy and do they have the cash in the bank to market their product? If the company is introducing a better mouse trap, will they be able to carve out market share from existing players? On this latter point, refer to point #3 above. If they have achieved commercial acceptance, than they have a good chance of multiplying their business.
  6. Market Capitalization – This is a simple one. Multiply the company’s outstanding shares by its share price and you get the company’s market valuation. If it is $100 million with only $100,000 in sales, run.
  7. Spiking Stock Chart – If the company has a chart that looks like a hockey stick over a short period of time (i.e. less than 30 days) on dubious news, you’ve run into a stock promotion and will be left holding the bag. The caveat here is for companies that have achieved that stock run on good, real news (big customer order, big discovery, etc.)

The small/micro-cap space is a great place to make phenomenal gains on up and coming companies. Use my 7 tips and you should prosper for a long time to come.

Best,
George

My Post To Technorati “WTF” – Gold and Uranium Stocks

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:06 AM on Sunday, February 18th, 2007

Good morning to you all. Technorati has a brand new feature called “WTF?”, which stand for “Where’s The Fire”. In a nutshell, members get to post about items that people are searching for – so I contributed a post called Junior Gold and Uranium Stocks Making Dot-Com Gains Thanks To Metals Prices . It is more of an overview but I used the opportunity to help spread the word about this sector and link readers to our clients here on AGORACOM.

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With gold and uranium prices sitting at or near all-time highs, junior gold and uranium stocks are showing gains we have not seen since the dot-com days.The difference? Whereas the dot-com boom was built on companies that had no real products and revenues, there is no arguing the demand for gold and uranium in this world. As such, the higher the prices, the higher the underlying stocks go.

To find out more, here are some good sources of information.

http://www.uraniumceoblog.com
http://www.agoracom.com/market… (use the filter to only see metals and mining co’s)

Hope this was helpful. If so, please drop by my blog which just went live a few days ago.

Regards, George

My Interview By AIMS Canada – Building Community With Social Media

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:30 PM on Monday, January 29th, 2007

Happy to announce that AIMS Canada graciously asked for my opinion on the best way to build community and deliver viable Web 2.0 applications. Given my stance on the fact that far too many Web 2.0 “companies” are confusing features for companies, I was only happy to do so. The interview can be found at:

http://www.blog.aimscanada.com/aims_canada/2007/01/agoracom_buildi.html

Special thanks to Brian Moran for producing the interview.

Vancouver Cambridge Conference 2007 Shows Metals Markets Have Legs

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:12 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2007

Greetings from Vancouver folks. If you had any doubts as to the strength of the junior resource markets, this show has put them to rest. Almost 10,000 investors showed up to meet just under 400 companies and the best newsletter writers in the business.

This could also be taken as a contrarian indicator that we are reaching a market top but I don’t see frothy prices in the juniors – certainly not like the Bre-X fueled mid-90’s. In addition, most retail investors I speak to are cautiously optimistic, a very good sign this market still has plenty of legs.

On the topic of newsletter writers, have a close look at the writings of Peter Grandich (www.grandich.com). He is paid by companies but I admire the fact the hand that feeds him does not dictate his market commentary. For example, despite having gold, copper and uranium clients, he has successfully called short-term tops in each of those markets and advised readers to take profits. It has cost him a couple of clients who felt they had been “betrayed” but it gained him far more credibility amongst readers and industry observers.

Kudos To Zanett Founder For Embracing Web 2.0 To Create Online Investor Community

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:40 PM on Monday, January 22nd, 2007

David McCarthy, Founder and former CEO of Zanett Inc (ZANE: Nasdaq) launched an online community and a series of podcasts for the purposes of building a permanent community of investors. Kudos to David for recognizing the power of Web 2.0 and becoming a pioneer that all small-cap companies should follow.

Full press release can be viewed at http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/061208/110129.html
Zanett community can be viewed at http://www.agoracom.com/ir/zanett

Regards,
George

AGORACOM Sponsors PIPEs Conference 2006; Presents – How To Conduct Great IR In A Web 2.0 World

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:25 PM on Monday, January 22nd, 2007

Good evening to you all. I recently gave a speech at the PIPEs Conference in New York (October 2006) titled “How To Conduct Investor Relations In a Web 2.0 World”. The conference targets PIPEs issuers, fund managers and analysts from all over North America, as opposed to public companies and individual investors. As such, I’ve made the speech available via webcast for pubco’s to view here.

Have a great night.

Regards,
George

Technorati Claim

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:14 PM on Monday, January 22nd, 2007

We’re sticking a stake in the ground and claiming this blog in the name of Technorati! Here’s a link to our Technorati Profile.