Stock Mister Pushes a Two-Day $150,000 Pump of ITonis, Inc. (PINK:ITNS)
Yesterday evening pumper Stock Mister set in motion a new promotion of a penny stock. The promotion is padded with a budget of $150 thousand and will run for two days, touting the stock of ITonis, Inc. (PINK:ITNS).
The main tout of the promo mail for ITNS is the recent formation of a new division of ITNS, headed by president Charles Hensley, the inventor of the Zicam cold remedy described as ‘one of the most successful’. A bit of research into Zicam turns up that in 2009 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to stop using the nasal versions of Zicam because those could cause damage to or destroy their sense of smell altogether, as NYTimes.com reported. The trouble with Zicam users led to $12 million worth of settlement payment under 340 lawsuits.
Financially, the company is not doing too good either. The latest publicly available financial report from ITNS covers the nine months ended August 2012 and contains the following numbers:
- $160 in cash
- $559 thousand in current liabilities
- zero revenues
- cumulative net losses as of Aug. 31, 2012 – $5.3 million
In addition to the dreary financial state of the company, ITNS issued 38.7 million shares to its officers, as part of a share compensation agreement, and as a chunk of a total of 64 million shares due.
The rest of the quarterly report is a complete mess, with a paragraph quoting an acquisition that has been carried and copied over from an old quarterly report dated February 2012. Back then the company’s authorized shares were 300 million and the acquisition would indeed require an increase, which was approved on May 25, 2012 and brought the authorized shares up to 1 billion. However, the paragraph explaining the need for an increase is still present in the latest quarterly, creating further confusion in readers. The company’s OTCMarkets.com page still lists their authorized shares as 300 million, which is not the case according to the latest filing.
The promotion for ITNS keep coming and are stacking fast. Traders should bear in mind that this may run for a short while. Still, many previous promotions run by Stock Mister have ended in considerable loss for shareholders. One recent example is Stock Mister’s pump of Ghana Gold Corp. (PINK:GGCO), which crashed before it could take off. The stock is currently about 75% down from the peak values of the promotion.
Traders are advised to do their own research and due diligence and be very careful with companies targeted by paid promotions, especially when the compensation for the promos is that big.
