Fortitude Group Inc. (OTCMKTS:FRTD) Bounces Back On PR
Fortitude Group Inc. (OTCMKTS:FRTD) may be late in its financial filings, but it certainly is active with its PR. Yesterday the company rose 17.65% on yet another press release full of promises.
FRTD had been stuck at the bottom of the charts for a long time, before it hopped on the marijuana train back in February 2014. At that point, the company adopted the tried and true tactic of producing copious amounts of vague but distinctly optimistic PR to promote its stock.
This practice has been known to yield results not dissimilar to those of a paid pump campaign in the short term. However, just as with pumps, PR hype and hope can only push a ticker up for so long, before serious investors actually start doing some due diligence and realize that the company’s not as promising as it might appear. In this case, some research reveals that as of December 31, 2013 FRTD had:
- cash – $1250
- current liabilities – $1.48 million
- NO REVENUES
- net loss – $376 thousand
A sad statistic, to be sure, and long outdated by now. So why do we bring it up? Because there simply isn’t a more recent filing. Like most of the companies in the marijuana sector, FRTD appears to be waiting for the last possible moment to report on the first quarter of 2014. Meanwhile the company keeps generating vague PR on an almost daily basis, and the announcements that the it keeps publishing just seem to be getting more incredible with each passing day.
On May 18, 2014 FRTD announced that an undisclosed third party had sent the company a letter of intent for a merger, containing a convenient confidentiality clause. Just three days later, the company announced that it had entered in a “database distribution partnership with a New York-based global event media company” – details on which also remained undisclosed.
Yesterday, FRTD put out an even more bold piece of PR, declaring that its corporate sites are to be up by the end of May and that the due diligence on the merger it is planning is expected to be completed before schedule. Furthermore, FRTD boasted that the initial order of VaporVites is shipping in about two weeks, and the quarterly that was due a week ago will be out TODAY. Investors might want to take a look at that, before jumping at FRTD stock.
Whether or not the company can actually deliver on all of the aforementioned accounts remains to be seen, but one thing is clear. If FRTD fails to do so, the company risks more than a crash, now that the SEC has made it clear that false or exaggerated PR will no longer be tolerated.
Another company that is currently soaring on hype and hope is Tranzbyte Corp. (OTCMKTS:ERBB), who rose 18.65% in yesterday’s trading session.
