A few years ago there was a big furor over at SH. Do youse guys remember this? It seems that some of the bashers over there were paid for their efforts against companies by competing corporations. It was a little hard to prosecute because they had to prove that SH had anything to do with it in order to censor them. There was a write up at Stockwatch. If someone more clever than I can come up with a link to it, much obliged. My point? The counterbalance to what is alleged has taken place at Agoracom already exists and has not been addressed. You can still pay a guy to bash a company to his heart's content on the internet and not fear reprisals from the OSC or any other provincial securities commission.
So many competing forces exist in the financial world that the effect of Agoracom is overstated. In November of 2008, it didn't matter a bit how much anyone promoted any of the small cap stocks. When a foreign government decides to nationalize a developing mine, or the price of gold goes down, it is completely out of the hands of Agoracom.
Do I believe the allegations possible? Yes. It seems improbable to me that in all of the 24,000 emails purported, there will be no instance whatsoever of promoting a stock. If you were to scrutinize any corporation out there carefully enough, improprieties will be found.
But wait a minute. I've moved in and out of stocks freely in that time, many of them with active bulletin boards and many believers, whether paid by Agoracom or not. I used to love the Noront board, but I no longer hold the shares. I've scoffed at and completely ignored many of the companies openly promoted by Agoracom, and haven't even been to their bulletin boards. I went where I felt the money was.
I believe this to be the best investment discussion venue, and hope that it doesn't disappear from the web.
I believe Canadians desperately need a real, national, securities commision that will address these issues (not the 13 currently in existence!) and that it had better perform a lot better than the OSC or the SEC.
