Nuvilex Inc (OTCMKTS:NVLX) Is Turning Into A Bumpy Ride
We’ve covered Nuvilex Inc (OTCMKTS:NVLX) a fair few times and if you have a look at our previous articles, you’ll see that one of their main problems seems to be the large amount of excitement that’s been going on for the last couple of months. This, in turn, has led to some rather unpredictable stock performance and it’s fair to say that the ride has been particularly turbulent during the last couple of weeks.
It all started at the end of last month when NVLX published the annual report for the period that ended on April 30. The figures in it weren’t particularly inspiring and because of them, the ticker lost some ground. Then, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, apparently changed his mind on weed and this meant that NVLX is in for another climb.
Medical marijuana isn’t the main line of business for Nuvilex, but they have mentioned it in some press releases and, as you probably know, penny stocks don’t need much persuasion to move either up, or down. Sure enough, the ticker followed other cannabis-related small cap ventures like Medical Marijuana Inc (OTCMKTS:MJNA), registering a couple of green sessions.
Then, however, came August 15 when a contributor called Nicholas Kitonyi published his opinion on Seeking Alpha and unfortunately for NVLX‘s shareholders, it wasn’t very positive. It talks about a host of things but the general notion in Mr. Kitonyi’s article is that NVLX is a sinking ship and that if you’re on it at the moment, you should definitely jump for safety.
You can check out the article for yourself and decide whether his arguments have any merit or not, but the fact remains that the publication did make an impact on the stock. The session that followed ended with around 7.6 million shares changing hands and around 14% in losses.
OTC Journal, apparently, weren’t happy with the article and they posted their own opinion which, just like the Seeking Alpha entry, appeared on NVLX‘s Yahoo! Finance profile. In the publication, OTC Journal’s Larry Isen speaks once again about the company’s huge long-term potential, about the revolutionary technology and there’s also an aggressive attack on Mr. Kitonyi for expressing a different opinion.
At one point, Mr. Isen writes: “…but this kind of activity makes one wonder if someone is being paid under the table on behalf of short sellers” and we find that rather ironic. Why? Well, the answer is easily found in OTC Journal’s very own disclaimer. If you check it out, you’ll see that MarketByte LLC (the company that owns OTC Journal) have been paid $10,000 as well as 1 million shares of common stock for a coverage of NVLX that spans between March 1, 2013 and March 1, 2014. More curiously, as of May 3, Mr. Isen and MarketByte seem to have sold 730 thousand of those shares which, you would agree, somewhat contradicts his strong beliefs of NVLX‘s long-term potential.
When you dig a bit further, you’ll see that there have been some complaints against MarketByte, OTC Journal and a person called Lawrence Isen for not disclosing the sales of securities while conducting a pump on a company called Shep Technologies (STLOF). OTC Journal and Mr. Isen were later mentioned in the official SEC Litigation against STLOF and we recently learned that the court has ruled in the Commission’s favor.
The litigation release doesn’t say what happened to Mr. Isen and, in the interest of fairness we should point out, that we’re not sure if Larry Isen and Lawrence Isen are, in fact, one and the same person. We do know, however, that OTC Journal were involved in the touting of STLOF and we do know that they have received some stock as well as some money from NVLX – two things that you should probably keep in mind while reading through Mr. Isen’s analyses.
In the meantime, Goldman Small Cap Research and Stock Market Media Group (who also received some money for their campaigns) continue with their rather poetic and extremely optimistic coverages, while NVLX themselves have yet to announce that they’ve reached a major milestone on their way to Phase III testing.
