Spam Stock Site in Economist Magazine
August 25, 2006 11:23 AM
Related Categories: Projects, Spam
For all those people interested in my Spam Stock Tracker site, it was mentioned in Economist Magazine this month. You can read the story here.
In related news I am getting more stock spam email than ever lately. I keep going back and forth from frustrated to impressed by the volume.
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A) I am not that smart. or as Homer would say S.M.R.T
B) From what I am told it is very hard to short them as brokers are not interested and the volume is pretty slow and when there is volume it is on the downside already.
"If your spam portfolio loses money so consistently, I wondering why you wouldn't try the opposite: short sell every spam promoted stock."
A quick Google search for "short penny stock" turned up this from investopedia.com:
"There are many restrictions on the size, price and types of stocks you are able to short sell. For example, you can't short sell penny stocks and most short sales need to be done in round lots."
It's unfortunate. If you could short penny stocks, I bet lots of people would do it in response to spam email until the spam became unprofitable for the spammers.
Regarding the increased volume, and why it's getting past filters, yes, it seems to have caught on as an idea, pretty conservatively, the spammers can almost guarantee themselves a few percentage points (in a day) so it's not suprising. Thre reason it's getting past filters is that it's a well distributed email that's coming as a single image, pretty hard for filters to know whether that picture is something you'd want or not. Beyond the wit of spam filters in other words.
I agree though, I'd like to see the same stock table listed where it was sold two market days after purchasing, I'm not so sure it would be such a grim picture.