ECUECU Being Manipulated?
WANGUY2k Disclaimer -- I have no idea if any of the claims in the following email prove manipulation of ECU share price. I am simply publishing the email that was sent to me by the undersigned individual
Dear Fellow ECU Silver Shareholders,
Let me begin this email with full disclosure – as a registered investment advisor, my clients collectively own over 12 million shares of ECU. Of that amount, I personally own approximately 1 million shares. All of my shares are held at Charles Schwab, which prompts my solicitation for ETRADE customers. Schwab does not trade ECU.
Over the past days/weeks/months, as I scrutinize ECU Silver trading via Stockwatch, it has become apparent to me that several brokerage firms appear to be acting as an unofficial market maker in ECU stock. Placing simultaneous “bids” and “asks,” usually only pennies apart, these firms are capturing minor spreads on a large quantity of shares. One such culprit, TD Waterhouse, was contacted by a large ECU Shareholder in Toronto . After connecting with a TD compliance officer, this shareholder chastised the compliance officer for the repeated blatant acts of suppressing the stock the past three days with minor sell orders (100 shares) in the closing seconds of the trading day. This example, my friends, is only the tip of the iceberg over the past six months. Whether this effort will pressure TD’s compliance department to discourage its trader from continuing this “game” remains to be seen.
Another brokerage firm conducting similar practices is ETRADE. Here are some reflections regarding ETRADE from our Toronto friend.
For illustration, the best way to make my point with E-trade is to take a look at Wednesday February 21st action to start:
As you can see the ET trader magically almost bought and sold the same exact number of shares for the day (32 350 shares) and did so without making a penny as the market grew strong as the day went on (went for a low of $2.97 to a high of $3.05 before TD sold us down with only 39 seconds left). On the surface, you would think there is nothing wrong with that, but when volume is light and you sell 30 000 at 3.02 and 3.04 etc, he is placing road blocks to go up as he wants to make sure he covers at lower prices:
88 E-TRADE
32,350
97,223
3.01
32,580
98,065
3.01
-230
WED Feb 21 end of day summary
Furthermore, thus far this month ET is one of the largest buyers and sellers of ECU where his avg buy is at $3.09 (309 504 bought) and his avg sell is at $3.11(474 588 sold). To you and I this may seem as a mindless act, but to ET, if you extrapolate these numbers over a full year, you are talking about a vast sum of money that is being made by using other people shares. The second thing to notice here is that ET has been a NET seller of 160 084 shares thus far in February , which we think are short sales, yet the short report that came out on Wednesday is O NLY showing 10 000 shares are sold. What is going on here folks???
88 E-TRADE
314,504
972,411
3.09
474,588
1,477,183
3.11
-160,084
504,772
Month to date for February full trading summary of ECU
Just so those that do not know me think I am crying sour grapes here; let’s look at the OFFICAL ET trading summary for the entire month of January 2007. Well look what we have here. ET bought 552 954 shares at avg of 3.12 and sold 570 559 shares at avg of 3.15 for a spread of .03 cents (that’s $17 000 in profits folks, not bad!) You have to be a pretty nimble fellow to buy and sell that many shares(almost 1.2 million shares) in a month . Also notice that for the entire month ET was only a net seller of only 17 605 shares despite the fact of the almost 1.2 million shares traded. Again, on the surface that seems like nothing, but you have to understand that ET shorted every rally, which stopped the stock from naturally going higher so he can make his pennies which I have shown turned into dollars at the end of the month at our expense.
88 E-TRADE
552,954
1,722,706
3.12
570,559
1,798,909
3.15
-17,605
76,203
Full trading summary for Month of January for ET
Just for illustration, here is also the Summary for December 2006. Once again, you can easily notice that ET bought 480 179 shares and sold 511 392 , but this time he got punished as he was not expecting that HUGE late December PR that caught us all by surprise. Once again, note how that despite the fact that although almost 1 million shares were bought and sold during the month, ET was only a net seller of 31 113. This, my friends is a professional marker manipulator taking advantage of honest folks.
88 E-TRADE
480,279
1,504,633
3.13
511,392
1,557,396
3.05
-31,113
52,763
Full trading summary for Month of December 2006 for ET
Just for good measure, I have provided an example of the kind blatant market manipulations act the ET has carried out. Lets roll the clock back to October 24th 2006 :
Tuesday 24th, 2006. the stock is at $2.87, E-trade comes in and sells at market 83 000 shares to drive stock to $2.80. As the Gold sector gains momentum off the lows and ECU starts going higher, E-trade comes in and sells a further 50 000 shares at MARKET to drive shares back to $2.80.
Furthermore, E-trade shows many small sell orders above $2.90 and at the same time, they start showing many small buy orders at $2.80, where they just finished selling at. Please see table below:
TD Sec
200
2.83
7 TD Sec
200
2.82
33 Canaccord
900
2.81
7 TD Sec
1,000
2.81
9 BMO Nesbitt
1,000
2.81
7 TD Sec
4,500
2.80
5 Penson
1,400
2.80
88 E-TRADE
2,300
2.80
88 E-TRADE
1,200
2.80
88 E-TRADE
350
2.80
Price
Volume
Broker
2.84
500
7 TD Sec
2.85
1,100
33 Canaccord
2.86
4,800
1 Anonymous
2.87
1,000
57 Interactive
2.90
2,000
1 Anonymous
2.91
2,000
88 E-TRADE
2.92
1,300
80 National Bank
2.92
3,100
88 E-TRADE
2.92
1,500
88 E-TRADE
2.93
2,100
88 E-TRADE
In my opinion, much/most of the reason why ECU Silver has not participated in the recent gold/gold stock rally is due to this blatant suppression by the supposed “market makers.” Eventually, as large institutions begin to accumulate stock, these in-house “traders” will be overwhelmed. However, in the meantime while volume is relatively low, these “traders” are preventing us from our deserved profit.
My request to any or all of the 65 ETRADE clients who have contacted me is the following:
Contact your ETRADE rep and ask to be transferred to the ETRADE Compliance Department. Tell the compliance officer that you are tired of watching (presumably) in-house traders at ETRADE daily manipulate the stock to their own benefit. Unless you receive a satisfactory reply of an internal investigation at ETRADE, you might want to threaten to pull your account. If enough of you make this call, ETRADE may be forced to take such action. Please e-mail me back with any responses you receive.
Sincerely,
Wistar Holt