Helmer Directional Drilling, Corp. (OTC:EXLA) Crashes with Promotion

When a promoter offers a golden opportunity, things usually go over the top. Well, this time they went through the bottom, as Helmer Directional Drilling, Corp. (OTC:EXLA) was sold out extremely fast, shedding more than 72% of its value to reach just 2 cents. This usually inactive ticker has seen only sporadic surges in volume and sometimes in price, but it took an email pump to really shock. On Thursday, another mention landed in our inbox, just in time for markets opening. The email this time is from Damn Best Penny Stocks, and we may expect another eventful trading day.

The first red flag for this ticker is its former name and business description. Until the summer of 2011, the company tried its fortunes as Exclusive Apparel, Inc., and now gold and metal ores are in the book. EXLA has the following resources to take the gold out of the ground:

• Zero cash

• $132,304 total assets

• Zero revenues

• $324,804 loss since inception

Also, EXLA is not beyond trickery, as it masks itself with the name of a legitimate oil drilling company. However, EXMT has nothing to do with Helmer Directional Drilling, Inc., as the above financials show. The names are hardly a coincidence. The original rig drilling company is a whole other entity, with a successful business dating back to 1965.

But whatever the real business of EXMT, a price of 2 cents and the presence of promoters would warp the natural movement of this penny stock. It is strange why so far the solid-looking business of Helmer has not managed to provide more robust interest in the EXLA stock.

The latest promoter for EXLA is ResearchOTC.com, compensated with $5,000 for a one-day profile of the company. Most of the email is taken up by future promises on mineral exploration and rich gold deposits, which, as usual, are still below ground.

In total, EXLA was mentioned in 40 emails this month, with a total compensation of $158,500 for a long list of pumpers. Other pumps ran longer and were compensated by $12,500 or even $30,000 for several emails. Stock Mister is among the larger pumpers. EXLA was promoted also at the end of last year, when after a long period of inactivity again a series of mails caused such noise that it all ended up in massive selling and a crash of the stock price by more than 90% in a few short days. Stock Mister picked Trulan Resources, Inc. (PINK:TRLR) a few days ago, but as it is easily seen from the graph, the unwanted attention caused a see-saw movement in the price, wiping out a large part of the gains.

Where EXLA will go from now on is hard to say, but it seems the stock is considered too hot to keep even for a few hours, so we may expect gains and losses to happen fast, within the trading day. In any case, be aware how much you could afford to lose before choosing one of the most heavily promoted tickers these days. We will be tracking EXLA in the next few days, to see if it could be playing its siren song, to keep you aware of the red flags around this company.