hotcopper and posters gaining attenti

Not sure if this has been posted before, but it's the first time I have seen it...

Seems places likely HotCopper are finally being recognised for their value...and perhaps threat to the status quo?

Cheers!

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Cyberspace is the place for little Gekkos
Hedley Thomas
January 06, 2007

IT is a bizarre meeting place for thousands of faceless dreamers, hard-bitten veterans, high-minded philosophers and entrepreneurial voyeurs. A cyberspace destination for astute investors, eternal optimists, stirrers, rampers, company insiders and regulatory spies - all shrouded in anonymity and united by a quest for fat gains from the booming Australian stock market.
From living rooms in the suburbs and swank offices in city towers, they share snippets of intelligence, gossip, hope and hedonism, every minute of the day and night. Most eschew the big traditional broking houses, preferring instead the banter from people they'll never meet.
Often, there are outbreaks of envy and greed - usually when a little-known stock has had a breakout in price. Abuse is hurled and returned with equal force on this capitalists' collective. Emotion from disappointment to unbridled euphoria runs through the thousands of online threads like gold in a massive reef. On hotcopper.com.au, Australia's largest Internet site for day traders, one punter who had been faring poorly was bluntly told he couldn't pick his nose with a shovel, let alone tip a stock worth buying. A little after lunch yesterday as a spat raged and a few favoured stocks nosedived, someone with the online name chris-vasil tried to restore peace: "Listen, we are all on here to gain some knowledge and make some money. Plain and simple. Quit the personal jibes. Let's not get down to kids' level. For (expletive deleted) sake, grow up."

For the administrators of Hotcopper, the demand is becoming overwhelming. Yesterday, correspondents were told that "usage has almost trebled in the last 18 months", and that efforts were being made to improve the speed. The site's record was set on Tuesday when over 5500 "unique members" converged online simultaneously.

Much of the time, particularly when the market is running with a head of steam and the day traders are watching portfolios fatten by thousands of dollars, they're warm and fuzzy towards men and women they don't know from a bar of bullion.

"This is ready guys," wrote Jason4 on Tuesday morning in a reference to Benitec Ltd, a biotechnology company that was trading at 8c. "The chart says it all - (selling price) creeping day after day, this should go soon." The slogan that automatically appears under Jason4's posts is: "Money can't buy happiness, but happiness can't buy goods and services."

On Wednesday morning, with Benitec still at 8c, someone called Ognid (spell it backwards) chimed in: "This thing is ready to explode. Good luck people."

Yesterday, Benitec's announcement that it had granted a worldwide licence to US drug giant Pfizer for human gene research saw the stock explode, as predicted. Jason4 and Ognid joined the exalted ranks of the day trading gurus as the price of Benitec shares rocketed about 500 per cent to an intra-day high of 48c before closing at 29.5c. "Absolutely incredible here, I'm making a motza in 20 minutes," wrote Rocket-man. But nobody owned up to having bought the stock when it was $1.20 in 2003, before its slide to as low as 2c last year.

Does the frenzied interest in the chat rooms presage danger for the markets and individual traders? Traditional brokers and analysts are scornful of the chat rooms, accusing some of their members of manipulating prices and sucking in the unsophisticated. In the US, where there are hundreds of dedicated stock chat rooms, regulatory authorities have warned the unwary.

Even respected Australian day trader Trade4Profit says: "I warn all of those not 100 per cent familiar with some of the antics that take place on forums such as Hotcopper not to be persuaded by the rantings of any one person in particular, including me."

A well-researched snippet about a little-known stock by someone like Trade4Profit can get the bulls running, unleashing waves of buy orders for obscure companies that the day traders had not heard of until a few lines of text popped on the screen. But there have also been celebrated examples of unethical correspondents orchestrating the "pump-and-dump" - talking up their stock so that others are buying, then dumping it for a quick profit.

Shadowing the Government's move towards nuclear reactors as an alternative energy source, many day traders have made merry with uranium stocks in recent weeks. Online, they debate the merits of scintillometers (used by geologists to measure radioactivity in the ground) and crunched complicated company announcements into layperson's language. Someone called The-Prophet, however, fears the frenzied run on yellowcake will end in tears: "Yep, this uranium bubble is now bordering on insanity. Reminds me of a casino."

Boasts are everywhere. Exaggerations must be rife. But the day traders are generous with free advice on how to handle the spoils and minimise capital gains tax. They also self-regulate, banishing the most blatant or self-serving spruikers. Someone called Arttse has had insomnia, lying awake thinking about potential gains. "Three hours sleep. Can't wait for another market day. I am following another little beauty uranium stock, watch it run today."