Hello all, today I want to talk about penny stocks, using the company APRU as an example of what not to trade. Trading stocks can be fun and lucrative but it can also be disastrous in a split second.
To make things simple, the stock market is split in two main parts: the real stock market, with real companies and the fake companies. Real companies are traded on the New York stock exchange, NYSE or NASDAQ. These are companies you should trade stocks on. Any trading platform such as Etrade or TD Ameritrade will show you what exchange they are traded on.
PENNY STOCKS ARE BAD
The other side is the penny stocks, or the pink sheets: the fake companies. These are purely traded on greed and fear. They are the pump and dump stocks. They are called pump and dump because traders with a lot of money pump up stories of how well the (fake) company is doing and then sell the stock when the price is higher. These evil traders promote fake stories and promote fake websites, with fake stats, on how well the company is doing. This is called pumping up the stock. Once the price gets to a certain price, the greedy traders sell all their stock, dumping it, and move to the next pump and dump scam.
WHAT ARE PUMP AND DUMP STOCKS?
Pump and dump scammers have newsletters you can subscribe to, letting you know what the NEXT BIG STOCK is going to be. Really? They can predict the future? How do they know what’s going to hit big? Oh yeah, I forgot again….they buy a TON OF STOCK, causing the price to go high and everyone buys into it. Once the price rises, they sell, pulling the rug out from under everyone.
The clueless traders / gamblers are left holding the bag, as they watch their money dwindle to nothing. They refuse to sell, thinking the stock will rise again in price someday. It will not.
Stock trading is alwasy gambling, whether is’t penny stock or real stock trading. Regardless of what anyone says, there are two determining factors that run stock prices:
GREED and FEAR
I used to work on the stock exchange floor in Chicago and loved it, although stock traders are some of the most ruthless and sneaky people you will ever meet. Did you know they had an entire floor designated to watching over the traders? Oh yes, they did. Traders would lie about trades they placed if they lost money, stating the trade was in error.
“I NEVER PLACED THAT TRADE!” Yeah right. I have stories, which I’ll tell another time.
HOW THE STOCK MARKET WORKS
Quite simply, if you buy one share of stock at $1 and its value goes up to $2, you just made $1 if you sell it. Of course there is the average flat rate fee of $7 per trade so you better not just sell the 1 share or you’ll have -$6.
So, penny stocks are typically anything under $1. If you buy 100 shares at 0.10 it will cost you $10. If the stock price gets to 0.11 you make one penny per share, so now you have 100 pennies, or, $1.00. This isn’t a lot of money but if you have a lot to invest, you can see how the stock price just going up one cent can make you a lot of money.
This is what pump and dump traders to. They tell great stories on how a company is doing to pump up the hype so they can sell and make a profit. One great example of this is APRU, know as Apple Rush company.
APRU STOCK IS FAKE
No matter what anyone says, APRU is a fake company that is run by a criminal. This is fact and there is no denying it. People will fight this fact because they want to see the stock price go higher so they can sell for profit.
People say “do your due diligence” and research. That means look into the company and find out for yourself. Well, that is also BS. There is nothing to find except for the fake websites and news. Here’s some due diligence I did on APRU.
Before I show you, I did find the APRU stock in 2007 and bought one million shares because it was only worth 0.0001. That’s one one-thousandth of a penny! 1/1000! No one was trading it and I figured, it’s so cheap, why not. I bought APRU thinking it may catch on one day and not because someone told me to.
So I got one million shares for $100. I kept the one million shares, which just sat there, for 8 years. What if it got to $1 a share one day? I’d have ONE MILLION DOLLARS for the cost of $100. Sure, I’ll try it.
I sold off most of the shares 8 years later when the price went to 0.0002. Guess what? It is trading at 0.02 now as I write this! If I would have kept the stock for a year longer, I could have sold it all and made $20,000. That would have been great! How long am I going to hold onto a stock though? Especially one that wasn’t moving for years.
APRU DUE DILIGENCE / research and why they are FAKE
- Here is the APRU website. Just by looking at it, it’s pretty basic. There is no in-depth info on their product, the history, etc. I tried contacting them a few times with no response. Emails and voice mails went unanswered. SHOCKING!
- A quick check at the website www.whois.com will show you who purchased the domain name, which is the website address. whois.com is a great tool to see if a website is available for you to purchase. It will also show you who purchased the one you enter and when it is available to purchase.
- You get a lot of cool interesting info if you’re a computer geek like me:
@GMAIL.COM
There are more facts to be found but I wanted to show you simple and easy detective work. It’s a fact that APRU stock from apple rush company is a fake company run by a criminal and his wife. This is not their only scam. More google searching will show they have handled many scams and have many criminal charges against them.
Penny stocks can be very lucrative but you should never hold on to them for longer than a week if you choose to gamble on them. Once penny stocks start to plummet, you should probably sell, as they will never come back. They are pump and dump schemes and should be avoided.
Regular stock by real companies traded on NASDAQ and NYSE have their ups and downs but they always come back. They are stronger and don’t disappear forever once profits are taken by stockholders.
There is a lot more to learn on stock trading. This was meant to give you a crash course. Good luck trading and be careful out there. Don’t listen to anyone without doing your research first.
Here’s some good reading if you are interested in trading stocks.
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Steve
