I know, McQuade... the idea that someone might try and attempt manipulate the market, it is just completely crazy, isn't it.

‘Pump and dump’ stock trader a simple, damaged Perth gardener, court hears

_{Hugo Timms, December 2, 2022}

...A man who artificially inflated stock prices before selling them at higher prices was a simple gardener desperate for the approval of others, a Melbourne court has heard.

XXX, known online as ‘Fibonarchery,’ has pleaded guilty to 23 charges of manipulation of listed stocks on the Australian Securities Exchange and 19 charges of illegal dissemination of information.

He is the first person in Australia to have been convicted over what is known as a “pump and dump” scheme, where an individual increases a share price before selling the stock at the higher price.In the County Court of Victoria on Friday XXX lawyer, Philip Dunn KC, said his client was a specialist in rose and hedge pruning who, without any qualifications in commerce or trading, “became obsessed by the market” and developed a skill in “picking penny dreadful stocks.”

...Prosecutors said from September 2014 to July 2015, XXX used 13 different share trading accounts held in the name of friends and relatives in order to alter the share price of 20 listed stocks.

They said XXX would spread information regarding his ‘washed’ trades and ‘dummy’ bids on HotCopper, a stock market online chat forum...

The extracts above have been taken from a December report that was published on the News.com website. I won't include the link given the obvious sensitivities, however, it isn't too hard to track it down.

One reason I've highlighted the situation concerning that former Hotcopper user is because it is of particular relevance to this forum. Once upon a time, Fibonarchery used to frequently post on the Phoslock threads, as some very long-term holders with very good memories might recall.

This is one of his posts from 2015:



Eight years on, I don't think there would be too many here who would disagree with the above assessment.

Anyway, it looks like Fibonarchery is in a serious situation, and probably facing some jail time, if the article is to be believed.

I have some sympathy for him. He did the wrong thing, but he is also a fairly convenient scapegoat. Any semi-regular long-term Hotcopper user who keeps an eye on the the stockmarket knows that attempts to manipulate market sentiment in various ways are not all that uncommon. I've certainly seen plenty of strange goings-ons on this platform over the years.

Speaking of which.

I'd almost forgotten about that post.

I wonder how many shareholders, who after watching one of their stocks lose more than 80% of its value in under 12 months, would suddenly feel a compulsion to post a glowing testimonial about a former CEO who departed from the company just as the whole edifice started to collapse?.

Note here that I am in no way suggesting here that former company directors might be posting on Hotcopper using fake accounts. That notion would of course just be completely crazy.

By the way @chand , I think you could be right about Canada: It does sound quite promising.

I have noticed that there has been an appreciable increase in Google searches about Phoslock from Canada over recent months, so there appears to be a bit of a buzz in that part of the world.

The one caveat I would add is that I tend to think any new contract is more likely to be in the hundreds of thousands range, rather than the millions.

The reason I say this is simply based upon precedent. The biggest Phoslock project in Canada to date was at Lac Bromont in Quebec, and that was worth $600,000. As such, I think a new contract is likely to be of a comparable size to this one, besides that, those around the half-million mark seem to be much easier to secure than the multi-million dollar deals.

Having said that, if they did get another 'Lac Bromont' sized-contract, I wouldn't be complaining. It probably would help to bolster share holder confidence, and the share price.


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