An online conversation on CEO.CA between investors, on the topic of United Battery Metals (UBM.C), on November 14, six days ago.
@Skyline27 Bid/ask im seeing is 1.44 dang@maplenorth What happened here? 1.14?@Cmarshall21 Manipulation@maplenorth no but what actually happened? Some stop losses obviously got triggered but it wasnt exactly on a small volume@Skyline27 I should have waited a bit longer. Oh well Bought more at 1.20 today
Two trading days later, and UBM was at $0.53.
Today? $0.34.
Sorry, Skyline27. I hope you jumped clear of the wreckage.
United Battery Metals has been slaughtered, and slaughtered again, and slaughtered again today. Every move it makes, the slaughter continues. The subject of a clear and obvious pump and dump scheme, the company is no longer master of its destiny. If it comes clean, it’ll be crushed. If it says nothing, it’ll bleed out.
It’s done. No good can come from this point forward.
The reason is simple: UBM was turned into a pump and dump. Not necessarily by the company’s management team, or any stock holder you or I could identify, but someone loaded up, they kicked in a ton of promo campaigns, and then they just BURNED it to the ground selling out of the thing.
HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?
As usual, it started out small.
On October 31, the company closed a $500k financing at $1.15 per share. UBM stock was already on a run, having lifted from $0.70 two months earlier on a nice, consistent, non-fraudulent marketing campaign, and a subsequently more intense, more questionable campaign that ramped up the action.
When that $1.15 financing closed, the accredited investors and insiders that snapped it up must have thought they were on a winner, being as the stock they were buying was now selling for $1.35 on the open market – ten cents higher than even the screamingly cheap $1.25 warrants they’d received as a bonus in the financing.
But the company got greedy. A four-bagger wasn’t enough. As the stock continued to rip and touched $1.68, they announced more marketing was coming, and went to Germany looking for it.
And then it all went to shit.
United Battery Metals Corp. has engaged BullVestor Medien GmbH to assist in building awareness and to provide communications support for the company to a German audience. United Battery Metals is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under symbol 0UL, and this new engagement with BullVestor will allow the company to broaden its footprint in Germany.
BullVestor Medien will arrange and disseminate independent research articles related to the company over the coming months, as well as develop and implement a social media strategy. BullVestor Medien has been paid 125,000 euros for its services.
It didn’t take long for that to be a problem.
New readers should probably take an education break about now to understand that small companies on the stock exchange, commonly known as penny stocks, will use market awareness programs to help investors find them, learn about them and, if all goes well, invest in them.
That’s the business we’re in.
When we do it, we tell our client companies in advance that we will include them in the conversation when they engage us, but we won’t necessarily be nice to them. They have to earn their stripes, and that helps us establish integrity with our audience. Many of our clients have been on the wrong end of this coverage, but we believe it compels them to do better, and establishes a connection with investors that allows them to feel confident in what they invest in, when they actually do invest. We call it ‘consulting journalism.’
If you disbelieve that’s how we do business, see the page: Are You Guys Pumpers for more details, and for a list of stories we’ve written that booted our clients around.
Not everyone in the penny stock marketing game plays it straight. In fact, the standard is to be dishonest and use a lengthy disclaimer to avow responsibility for that.
Part of Bullvestor’s portfolio of websites is a site called Inult.com and, to suggest that site is overly promotional would be like suggesting ebola was a poor choice of salad dressing. Using a secondary site to act as an ‘arms length’ agent allows such companies to get loose with the truth, in the expectation it won’t come back to them.
Here’s the chart Inult used on their story. It’s pretty.
You’d buy that, right? Hell, I was tempted a few times.
Three days later, on November 14, it looked like this:
UBM stock was shredded back to under $1.05, leading the regulators at IIROC to send out one of their usual ‘please explain your stock volatility’ demands, as the Germans announced they were investigating.
UBM struggled to remain positive:
According to information available to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin)), buy recommendations are currently being issued for shares in United Battery Metals on a large scale through e-mail newsletters.
BaFin has evidence indicating that these buy recommendations contain false or misleading information and/or that existing conflicts of interest are wrongfully concealed. It has initiated an investigation into suspected market manipulation in the share.
[..]
The only market awareness that the company has engaged in German-speaking countries is with bullVestor Medien GmbH, which was announced by press release on Nov. 7, 2018.
Relative calm took hold for a few days, during which time our friends in the chatrooms at CEO.CA got a little confidence back but, on November 16, UBM was halted – not by the company, but by IIROC, ‘pending company contact’.
That’s not usually a good sign.
That means the people at IIROC were not just concerned, but so fucking concerned that they were done being nice, and called the CSE directly to tell them to shut it all down so they could get the company’s attention.
On November 19, presumably having talked to regulators more and being shown exactly what was causing it problems, UBM publicly severed ties with BullVestor, the company behind the promo, and the halt was lifted.
The Canadian Securities Exchange has made United Battery Metals Corp. aware of promotional materials being distributed by Inult Alles Auf Anfang in Germany. Prior to being contacted by the CSE, the company was unaware of Inult or the materials being distributed by Inult.
Doubt it, but continue.
Based on the information from the CSE, it appears that one of the principals of Inult is Helmut Pollinger, a principal of bullVestor Medien GmbH.
In light of this new information, the company has severed its relationship with bullVestor Medien.
That’s probably a ‘too little, too late’ situation.
UBM stock was shredded once more. Actually, twice more.
This is Helmut Pollinger from BullVestor. Just in case you meet him at an AGM and want to hit the fire exit before everything burns down.
Pollinger is no fool. Why, he’s sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum it put them on the map.
I’m sure Helmut is a lovely guy with a fine taste for good strudel, but it must be said, anyone who reads this guy’s bullshit promo stories and actually commits money to the stocks being promoted has either made a conscious decision to race sharks across the bay, or is dumb enough to enter the water despite there being shark fins EVERYWHERE.
It’s likely a handful of folks bought without reading the fine print – or between the lines. But, for the most part, promo monsters like this guy are sending out dog whistles to investors, that ‘this company is spending massive amounts on promotion and will probably go up because of it, so just buy it and be part of the wave and don’t think about how I’m going to be selling all my paper as you buy because someone else is dumber than you and will be buying in while you sell yours.’
That attitude is seen in the response to the situation on Inult’s website.
In short, Inult alles Auf Anfang is unrepentant.
In an anonymous response penned by ‘INULT Editorial’, the website now says:
The stock of United Battery Metals was introduced to our readers. We would like to comment that all our information is based on publicly available sources and we have no doubt as to its accuracy: [..] no misleading or incorrect information was provided by our side.
We have clearly and clearly pointed out an existing conflict of interest with each publication. We remain convinced of the company’s positive outlook.We will continue to keep you up to date with all the news about United Battery Metals.
“We have no doubt as to its accuracy”?
Then why is this in the disclaimer?
All information and data published by inult comes from sources that we believe to be reliable and trustworthy at the time of creation. However, no guarantee can be given as to the correctness and completeness of this information and data. [..]
A responsibility or liability for the accuracy and completeness of the information contained in this publication is excluded.
Inult’s disclaimer also includes:
I. Authors and the publisher, and related consultants and principals hold stock of shares in United Battery Metals at the time of publication and reserve the right to sell them at any time and without notice or to enter new positions in United Battery Metals.
I bet they do. Inult’s principals either sold the stock to cause the drop (in part or full), or have lost a fortune holding it as it burned. Neither is a good situation.
Below are some choice pieces of the story that Inult not only published, but continues to leave up, despite their leash having been pulled, which are obviously bullshit.
What’s amazing is, from our perspective, though their disclaimer warns they’re ‘not professional investment advisors’, they’re dishing loads of actual advice on what to buy.
We anticipate timely updates from the Wray Mesa project in the US, we believe that the price will continue to rise steadily for no reason.
In our opinion, you should definitely put a position on the stock of United Battery Metals into the custody account.
But United Battery Metals should be one of the first companies ever to launch a new vanadium mine (insider tip!)
The stock of United Battery Metals definitely has what it takes to become a potential tenfold, the team is currently working on making history.
Get one more position now to be part of this truly exciting story.
The share is currently quoted at around 1.10 euros. However, the price could reach a range of 4-5 euros in the next few weeks
We expect United Battery Metals to continue gaining strength and believe that you should use the current price level as an entry point.
That was written when the stock was at $1.60. If you’d used that as an entry point, like the Inult editorial writer suggested you should do, you’d be down 75% on your money a few days later.
UNENDING PILES OF BULLSHIT
The article on Inult’s site is rife with lies and deception, that’s clear. But if you look deeper, you’ll find the article writer’s bullshit is contradicted even by his/her/their own words just a few paragraphs earlier.
Here’s a statement from the middle of the Inult story:
Denver-based uranium producer Energy Fuels plans to use its processing plant in Utah (probably later this year) on vanadium production. The Energy Fuels uranium mines on the La Sal complex in Utah are now also expected to release vanadium.
It’s true, Energy Fuels is indeed looking to produce vanadium this year. Prophecy Development Corp is also saying it’ll be the first local producer.
Hmm. So two players will have vanadium production going by year end. Healthy sign for the market and something that, if I were writing a piece about UBM, I’d mention.
But a few paragraphs later, Inult decides a healthy sector is not enough, that only their client can possibly get to production first and it will make HISTORY!
We believe that United Battery Metals will be one of the resource companies that will benefit most in the coming weeks and months from the new “vanadium boom”. Because we know of no other company in the industry, which can present such a tight schedule and actually plans to sell the first vanadium within the next 24 months.
What an absolute pile of unmitigated bullshit. They just mentioned another company that ‘actually plans to sell the first vanadium’.
The only thing in this story that isn’t a bald faced lie or unbackable claim, is this one:
We can expect a lot of news from the progress of the project in the coming weeks.
Well, yeah. but the news was about this crappy German marketing outfit that makes outlandish claims, tells people to buy a penny stock but hides in the fine print that you shouldn’t do what they say, and straight up lies while representing the company it is talking about and cashing its cheques as a paid consultant.
My only hopes at this point are two-fold:
1: That Helmut Bollinger, and his friend Pascal (regulators, you know who I’m talking about, get on this please) get pinged for this and are actually held responsible for shareholder losses
2: That IIROC takes this seriously enough to dig deeper on Bridgemark Financial, and its long pattern of offering companies millions in financing if they’ll agree to turning that financing back over to them in return for ‘marketing programs’ like this, and consultant warrants that are tradable from day one, which coincide with quick and massive dumping of said stocks.
For more on this, dig into the CEO.CA #AllSharesMatter thread. IIROC, I’m looking at you.
Lastly, the big question that people ask at times like this… is UBM oversold?
The answer is simple: If you could make a profit buying stolen Rolexs and selling them to other people, would ya? Because UBM, cheap or otherwise, is sullied. Don’t touch it unless your hands are already dirty.
— Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: Again, no dog in the fight, just sick of seeing people lose their money on this kind of bullshit that makes what I do for a living look bad.