0.99 cents and understanding teefer, page-15

On a forum like hotcopper the popular stocks referred to attract a massive number of posts. The volume of optimistic or bullish posts typically massively outweighs the pessimistic or bearish content at times by as much as 10-20 to 1. It's hard to see how a relatively small number of negative posts on an anonymous public forum can have the power to bring a stock down.

The truth is that the power comes from the conditions the stock operates in eg poor market conditions, poor company performance, bad fundamental news etc. The negative posters have little power without these things just like the optimists can't keep a stock up without good news. Bulls and bears are two sides of the same coin as are long and short trades. Can't ultimately have one without the other otherwise there'd be no market.