Shares of ATC Venture Group (NYSE: ATC) saw its shares surging in early morning trading for no apparent reason. The stock, which has a 90 day average volume of 5,200 shares traded per day, has already surpassed 1.2M shares traded within the first hour of trading. After investigating the issue, it appears the catalyst behind today’s move stems from a promotional campaign spearheaded by a number of notorious penny stock promoters. The controversial email “touts” are deploying the usual bullish hyperbole like, “this could be the most undervalued ticker I have EVER seen!” (note the emphasis on the capital ‘EVER’). Despite positioning ATC Venture Group (NYSE: ATC) as the “next big thing” their argument is lopsided and fails to address the underlying issues that have contributed towards the precipitous decline in the stocks share price over the past several years.
Stock promoters listed as having released “reports” on ATC Venture Group (NYSE: ATC) this morning include: PennyStockAlerts.com, DailyPennyStocks.com, DamnGoodPennyPicks.com and StockMister.com. Considering the lack of a single penny stock newsletter issuing a report on ATC Venture Group over the past year it is not unreasonable to assume that this campaign was pre-arranged by these separate penny stock outlets. One particularly disturbing fact about this group of promoters is an article published in August 2011 that was featured on PumpsAndDumps.com: Touts: The Seedy Side Of Being A Stock Pimp. From the first paragraph the article points out that “eventually most of these touts will go beyond toeing the proverbial legal line” and specifically references PennyStockAlerts.com in this regard. “We label the Stock Psycho at PennyStockAlerts.com, its owner IPR Agency, LLC and its publisher Ryan Franks criminals.”
On October 5, 2012, the American Stock Exchange notified the company that it was no longer in compliance with the Exchange’s listing standards “because the aggregate market value of its public float was less than $1.0 million for 90 consecutive days.” Approximately one month prior to the notice, the Company had received a public warning letter from the NYSE as a result of its failure to provide timely notice to the AMEX regarding the company’s annual shareholders meeting.
Net losses for the most recent quarter reached a whopping $598,870 with cash and cash equivalents totaled just $16,286. To date, the Company has racked up an accumulated deficit of approximately $8,248,000. With an aggregate market value of less than $1.0 million for the public float and the failure to files its Form 10-Q for the 3 months ending June 30, 2012 it is not likely the company will be able to meet its listing standards for the American Stock Exchange – even with today’s touting efforts by unscrupulous penny stock newsletters.
