perfect stock for securities fraud
If you were going to pick a stock to manipulate this would be a good candidate - in turmoil, with a tiny float and desperate shareholders.
There are just too many fishy things going on here:
1) this guy does not have the cash
2) no one gives a 600% premium in this commodities market - ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. My WPX sold 51% stake in company for 31 cents when the stock was trading at 27 cents. My FCU (best uranium discovery in 50 years is getting raided by DML for pennies on the dollar).
3) why would his group release that odd and premature news release which KRN had to correct?
4) why are stange emails from bogus potash tycoon's surfacing.
#3 is now clear to me - if Braich group did the right thing and kept this quiet until the board had a chance to review +/- fairness opinion - they would have come to the realization that this was a bogus deal (kicking tires at a car dealership). However, Braich et al needed the immediate jump in the share price to cash in on cheap shares the group acquired before the news of this possible transaction surfaced I suspect. If KRN refused the deal without issuing a press release we would have never heard about this and there would have been no market reaction.
My question however is this - is it a crime to be crazy? Say I bought 300,000 shares of KRN stock at 60 cents which for argument sake was my entire life savings? If I then proclaimed to be a billionaire and issued a press release about me making KRN an 800 million dollar deal mean while selling my 300,000 shares as the market priced in this potential sale (say selling shares at 1.80 netting a $360,000 profit before the market realized the deal was phoney) - does this make me guilty of any crime? It seams like market manipulation but hostile bidders acquire shares before a take over attempt all the time so how is this different? Is it a crime to be delusional and think you are a billionaire. It works for Donald Trump and for lots of people trying to scam a test drive at a Ferarri dealership ...
Am I being paranoid or do you agree that this is really fishy?? I wanted to backup the truck today but the market clearly knows something and is questioning this deal big time!! The last thing I need is to lose more $$ in KRN!!