I have been following the ITE saga for the past nine months. I...

I have been following the ITE saga for the past nine months. I read the posts initially on the NZ Sharetrader forum and then followed the discussion as Robbo transferred his attention to HC.

I am an old guy and have a poor knowledge and "feel" for the IT sector. I am however wise in the ways of the market and I have real concerns about the blatant ramping tactics Robbo has engaged in.

Robbo has been posting on the Sharetrader forum for years and has a following of sorts. He is an intelligent and knowledgable character but his track record of success is poor. There is a competition on Sharetrader each year and for the past two years Robbo's "picks" have come in last and second last respectively.

My concern is that he has deliberately picked an IT stock because he realizes the typical ITE follower is young, naive and inexperienced in market tactics. Many of the ITE posters strike me as mere kids and have bestowed Robbo with guru status.

Robbo is a strange guy. His long rambling posts are quite bizarre. I am not in a position to question their veracity but I know BS when I see it and many of his quirky posts had my BS detector running red hot. I wonder where he found the time and energy for these crazed ravings and suspect is suffers from a manic-depressive illness. It would certainly explain the way he suddenly went "off air". Manic depressives are typically highly intelligent and during the manic phase, are prolifically productive.

There is a lesson in this for the inexperienced stock market punter. HC is replete with rampers and Robbo is one of the best at the game. I believe his modus operandi was as follows:

In mid 2006 he would have found ITE. The chart looked promising and the fundamentals were positive. He would have bought a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of shares at around 8 cents. ITE was an ideal company as it would have plenty of geeky young IT aficionados following it. He then engaged in his attention seeking bizarre posts. He was very good and initially I was taken in by his engaging style. Once he had collected a cabal of devoted acolytes, he then began promising huge gains in the near future. I think this resulted in the initial jump from 8c to 20c. He continued ramping flat out. A few posters on Sharetrader called his bluff and he immediately transferred to HC where the ramping continued unabated.

I dont know when he sold the bulk of his holding but I would guess he averaged 22 c or thereabouts. The lesson for the young tyro is that our wonderful Robbo probably changed $ 200,000 into $500,000 in less than 10 months. Good money if you can get it.

I am sure this post will result in an avalanche of criticism from Robbo's supporters. I would urge these folk to at least think about what I have written before rushing blindly to Robbos defence.

As for ITE. I do not feel qualified to comment with any real certaintly but my gut feeling is that ITE is a highly speculative small company with a good product - but it is engaged in a very competitive business environment. With IT products, I suspect many are called but few are chosen. It is an undercapitalised company and will need a serious cash injection (?takeover / merger) if it is to go places.