Here you go: HotCopper's secret small cap portfolio Myriam...

Here you go:


HotCopper's secret small cap portfolio
Myriam RobinColumnist
Jul 26, 2019 – 12.00am
Save
Share

The Australian-based, ASX-listed stock forum is a hot bed of dark ops investor relations and pump-and-dump operations. Virgina Star

We wrote last week how ASX-listed sharemarket forum HotCopper was often used by "dark ops investor relations advisers and pump-and-dump operators" to promote stocks the posters had no intention of holding for long to unwary punters at the best possible price. It prompted a furious response from MD Jag Sanger on social media (who reckoned the only correct fact in the piece was that HotCopper has three times the audience of this newspaper).

Mind you, when we pointed out that HotCopper was sometimes used to push up share prices by interested parties, we'd breezily assumed any benefit of this to HotCopper was only indirect. If only.

HotCopper, which is certainly by far the largest such forum in Australia, has an intriguing way of making money. Theoretically, at least (more on that later).

Say a tin-pot ASX-listed miner is conducting an equity raising. Under its Platinum Equity program, HotCopper's salespeople may approach it offering to invest up to $50,000. The offer comes with strings: the company will commit to purchasing an equivalent amount of HotCopper advertising (banner ads, email blasts or online sponsored content). HotCopper promises not to sell its stake for nine months, and not until the share price rises by a minimum of 30 per cent. Perfect alignment! For a while, at least.


A page from the HotCopper Discussion Guide (May 2019) revealing the broad contours of its Platinum Equity program HotCopper