Brownian Motion Posted August 25, 2006 Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 BBC NEWS Spammers manipulate money markets Spam messages that tout stocks and shares can have real effects on the money markets, a study shows. E-mails typically promote penny shares in the hope of convincing people to buy into a company to raise its price. People who respond to the "pump and dump" scam can lose 8% of their investment in two days. Conversely, the spammers who buy low-priced stock before sending the e-mails, typically see a return of between 4.9% and 6% when they sell. The study recently published on the Social Science Research Network say their conclusions prove the hypothesis that spammers "buy low and spam high". The researchers say that approximately 730 million spam e-mails are sent every week, 15% of which tout stocks. Other estimates of spam volumes are far higher. Mass marketing The study by Professor Laura Frieder of Purdue University in the US and Professor Jonathan Zittrain from Oxford University's Internet Institute in the UK analysed more than 75,000 unsolicited e-mails. All of the messages touting stocks and shares were sent between January 2004 and July 2005. Our analysis shows that spam works Professors Frieder and Zittrain The e-mail messages had either been received by Professor Zittrain or been posted on a newsgroup, known as NANAS. NANAS is used to alert network administrators about new spam messages and the action they can take against them. The researchers were then able to compare the estimated size of an e-mail campaign with trading activity and share prices immediately before and after the first arrival of a spam message. The team found that a spammer who bought shares the day before starting an e-mail campaign and then sold them the day after could make a return on his or her investment of 4.9%. "If he or she were to be a particularly effective spammer - returns to this strategy would be roughly 6%," they wrote. Conversely if someone who received the message chose to invest $1000 (£530) in a promoted company they would be left with $947.50 after two days. Victims of a large e-mail campaign could be left with $930 after two days. On average a victim loses $52.50 for every $1000 invested. However, real losses would be even greater the team suggest because the victim would also have had to have paid fees to buy and sell the shares. "Our analysis shows that spam works," the team wrote. "Among its millions of recipients are not only those who read it, but who also act upon it" Security firms advise e-mail users to install a spam filter, delete unsolicited messages and never to respond to offers. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/5284618.stm Published: 2006/08/25 11:10:42 GMT © BBC MMVI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted August 25, 2006 Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 Anyone who buys shares of stock based on spam messages deserves to lose money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted August 25, 2006 Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 Anyone who buys shares of stock based on spam messages deserves to lose money. Quite right. I'm on the Spammers' side. Parting fools from their money is a most public spirited economic activity. MG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son-of-a-Weizen Posted August 25, 2006 Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 Parting fools from their money is a most public spirited economic activity. Okay, okay.....so I saw the latest Miles release list and ordered some of those new KoB & Milestones mini-lps from japan.....no need to throw elbows! So what? I'm sure other people here have 8 versions of each too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted August 25, 2006 Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 Parting fools from their money is a most public spirited economic activity. Okay, okay.....so I saw the latest Miles release list and ordered some of those new KoB & Milestones mini-lps from japan.....no need to throw elbows! So what? I'm sure other people here have 8 versions of each too! Ah, but if you haven't bought this you don't entirely qualify. MG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brownian Motion Posted August 25, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 Anyone who buys shares of stock based on spam messages deserves to lose money. I guess that's the spammer's attitude too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brownian Motion Posted August 25, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 Anyone who buys shares of stock based on spam messages deserves to lose money. Quite right. I'm on the Spammers' side. Parting fools from their money is a most public spirited economic activity. MG As the Bush administration has taught us Yanks again and again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted August 25, 2006 Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 The idiots who respond to spam are also the reason that we ALL get spammed all the time. If no-one responded it would never get sent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert J Posted August 25, 2006 Report Share Posted August 25, 2006 Sometimes other things happen to good people. _________________________ TORONTO — A number of Canadian investors cleaned out their on-line brokerage accounts this week and then dumped the proceeds into a group of obscure penny stocks, including one based in Vancouver. There was only one problem: They had no clue they were actually trading. Regulators and police are now scrambling to untangle a complex financial scam that has put a high-tech twist on the boiler rooms of yesteryear. This week, a pair of Canadian brokerages, including BMO InvestorLine, discovered that someone had gained unauthorized access to a handful of client accounts, and then liquidated the portfolios. The money was used to place orders for securities listed on the OTC Bulletin Board and the Nasdaq pink sheets, apparently with the intention of manipulating these stock prices, according to the Investment Dealers Association of Canada. Alex Popovic, vice-president of enforcement at the self-regulatory body, suggested this could be part of an elaborate "pump-and-dump" swindle, in which someone artificially inflates the price of a stock and then "dumps" it for a profit, leaving other investors with next-to-worthless paper. "That's the supposition at this point -- that it is the 'pump' side of a pump-and-dump scheme," Mr. Popovic said. "Or, in the alternative, it could be a money-laundering scheme and it's a way of getting the cash out of the client's account." So far, tens of thousands of dollars have been improperly traded, sources said. BMO reported two cases of improper account access to the IDA, while TD Waterhouse confirmed it is investigating suspicious activity in less than a half-dozen accounts, although it is not clear whether this is part of the same scam. Mr. Popovic said he has notified the RCMP about the problem, as well as provincial securities regulators in Ontario and British Columbia. Authorities are still uncertain as to how the accounts were breached, but said there is no indication that fraudsters had penetrated the security systems at these on-line brokerages. One theory is that investors unwittingly gave up their passwords through what is known as a "phishing" e-mail, a scheme that has become increasingly pervasive in the investment industry. Essentially, fraud artists pose as a representative from a bank or brokerage firm and trick customers into divulging private account information. Other possibilities cited by the IDA were "pirate" websites, which mimic the appearance of a bank's website, or even computer viruses that spy on users by recording their keystrokes. Some experts have estimated there are as many as 150 million phishing e-mails sent over the Internet each day. A study by Visa two years ago, when phishing was still a relatively new phenomenon, suggested as many as 200,000 Canadians may have been victimized by these attacks. The IDA was notified by U.S. authorities last week that a similar operation was afoot south of the border, and that the perpetrators were breaking into on-line trading accounts to buy the same stocks on the over-the-counter market. One of these unnamed securities is based in Vancouver, according to sources. The IDA declined to comment on the specific stocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penny-stocks Posted December 18, 2009 Report Share Posted December 18, 2009 its because of Spammers that manipulate money market that today we are facing recession Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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