Stock Spam Works... For The Spammers
from the as-if-you-didn't-expect-that dept
Last year, one guy got a lot of attention for tracking a portfolio of stocks made up entirely of ticker symbols promoted in various spam messages. We all get them in our spam folder: stocks insisting that some unknown penny stock is about to shoot up to some ridiculous level. They've been around for ages. Obviously, the spams must work, because otherwise why would they continue? While most people know better than to buy a stock based on a spam message, there are clearly enough suckers out there to make it worthwhile. A new study has checked in on the numbers, doing a bit more academic version of the portfolio tracker above. They found that (as you would expect) people who invest in stock that was spammed tend to lose money. However, the people (the spammers) who bought the stock a day or two before the spam tend to make a decent return (sometimes depending on how proficient they are as spammers). While this certainly fits into the "no duh" category of things for most of us, it's still fascinating to see that there are enough gullible folks out there who actually buy stock based on spam.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Spam Stock Flood
I plan to work on the spamstocktracker site this weekend to actually show each and every spam indexed to each stock ticker. Maybe the someone can use that to track the spam back and do something about it.
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Augh
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Re: Augh
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Mike listens to NPR
Ah...
Regurgitation.
For some reason it just doesn't taste as good the second time around.
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Re: Mike listens to NPR
Or. Um. Maybe I just read the news online, such as the BBC which is where I found the story, as the link in the story shows.
For some reason it just doesn't taste as good the second time around.
Which is why you posted it twice? :)
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Mike listens to NPR
Ah...
Regurgitation.
For some reason it just doesn't taste as good the second time around.
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Sell short
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Re: Sell short
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Re: Sell short
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Always remember you cant win a contest you never entered. no matter how many times they tell you click here for your free computer that you just won from spamvill spamsilvania hehe :-)
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Re: by karen on Nov 4th
You are absolutely right that image spam is tricky
http://www.commtouch.com/downloads/Image%20Spam%20Defense1.pdf
Actually Im suprised it to the spammers this long to come up with it.
Good luck with your spam wars!!
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Re: Re: stock spam
i think if you get the first round of spamming, then buy quickly, watch it go up and sell it later that same day!
anyway, just in response to karen, who complains about spam filters.. i use yahoo.com and these e-mails are always filtered out. I still get my daily e-mails from "The Desk of ABU ZARIM ZONGO, head of filing department at Bank of Africa"
if people are still falling for that, i think we'll have stock spam for a looooooong time
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Re: recommended Spam filters
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Re: Augh
If you could buy the stocks when you get the spam, then sell the next day, you might make something. If you could find out before, it would be even safer.
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Short Term Stock Tracker
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Crazy
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Back Up
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Stockspam
I realize that most of the tips are vacuous with unyielding results; however, if you are more clever than the spammers---which takes only a little education in securities---one will not act upon fear alone and can use these tips as I have to make some fun returns. i have always used spammer's tips to help in my endeavors. I have yet to lose. One must do his/her research on the so-called hot tips they send. After careful scrutiny, I have fun buying these hi volume stocks and make a few dollars. I like stock spam. Send me all the spam you want.
Will
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Stockspam Why are You angry!?
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Re: Stockspam Why are You angry!?
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penny stock
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