Northumberland Resources Inc (OTCMKTS:NHUR) Getting Smashed Again

Traders were probably hoping that Northumberland Resources Inc (OTCMKTS:NHUR) will manage to remain level at around $0.80 per share and we’re pretty sure that some of them wanted to see some good news pushing the ticker up to a more favorable price. People who bought stock around the third week of May when NHUR was experiencing incredible heights were most likely the ones keeping their fingers tightly crossed and they were also probably the ones who were least happy when the ticker obliterated around 26% during yesterday’s session finishing the day at just $0.60. During the day, it dropped to around $0.41 and the trading volume of around 2.6 million shares suggests that a lot of people were selling. Naturally, the question now is: “What caused it?”.

Well, we first checked NHUR‘s SEC filings only to see that they haven’t published anything since May 20 when the 10-Q for the first quarter of 2013 came out. We checked for new emails and there were none. While the publishing date of the $3 million Financier Times article specifically designed to pump the ticker was changed once again to July 6 (the last time we wrote about NHUR, it was dated June 25) we doubt that this was enough to scare away the traders.

Then we stumbled upon another article. This one is not aimed at touting NHUR as a brilliant investment alternative, but rather, it’s aimed at revealing the truth about the whole pumping campaign. Unlike the one that gets republished every couple of weeks, this one is not posted on some God-forsaken website specifically designed to look like a serious media. It actually came online at Seeking Alpha and, predictably, there’s no disclaimer saying that the author received millions of dollars for his efforts.

Unlike the Financier Times’ (who have now received some more cash to tout Sanborn Resources Ltd (OTCBB:SANB)) affair, it’s full of cold hard facts, as well. It talks about the connection between NHUR‘s CEO and National Graphite Corp (OTCMKTS:NGRC), about NGRC‘s own promotional history and about the way Pub Capital, Inc. drew investors’ attention to NHUR. The author, also talks at length about the company’s rather dreary financial situation and the 78% decrease in revenues between the first quarter of 2013 and the three months at the start of 2012.

If you have a look at NHUR‘s profile at our website, you will see that we wrote a fair few articles about them, ourselves and you will see that most (if not all) of the arguments listed in the Seeking Alpha article are featured in our coverages as well. We knew where the $3 million pump was going and we tried to warn our readers a number of times.

The red flags are virtually everywhere and if you do a bit more research, you will see that there are things suggesting that the people behind NHUR are connected not only to NGRC, but to some other shady mining ventures like Tiger Oil and Energy Inc (OTCMKTS:TGRO), Black Hawk Exploration Inc (OTCMKTS:BHWX) and Universal Potash (OTCMKTS:UPCO), as well. You will also see that there are some discrepancies between the address of the principal offices in the SEC filings and the one listed on their fancy-looking website in addition to numerous other things that will make the experienced and diligent investor simply walk away.

Sure enough, because of all these things, there is no way NHUR can sustain any sort of steady performance and while, the Seeking Alpha article from yesterday might have sped up the process a bit, the end result was always going to be pretty much the same. Speaking of which, even after yesterday’s crash, the market cap is estimated at around $37 million, which is quite a lot for a company that only has $975 thousand in total assets, only $106 thousand of which are current. That’s why falling further down is still an option and we reckon that it’s worth considering in case you’re thinking of buying some stock at the proverbial dip. If you don’t believe us, you might want to have a look at the chart for Lot78 Inc (OTCMKTS:LOTE) on the right. Back when they were at their highest, we expressed some concerns about the longevity of the excitement surrounding them and sure enough, right now, a month and a half later, they are standing around 97% below the height.