Virtual Sourcing, In (OTCMKTS:PGCX) Squashed By Darth Trader’s Efforts

The pump for Virtual Sourcing, In (OTCMKTS:PGCX) started about a month ago when a colorful landing page was set up to promote the ticker. It’s still up and running, it still has the $3 – $6 price targets written in a bold typeface and is still sports the same fine print at the bottom which discloses that the total promotional budget amounts to $750 thousand.

At the beginning, however, the investors’ reaction was not something to talk about. There were a few ups and down, but the tiny trading volumes suggested that the people simply weren’t paying attention. Things changed when the newsletters stepped in.

The first alerts flew in minutes after the start of August 20’s session and the effects were absolutely profound. Six and a half hours later, PGCX had gained around 140% – a run that gave the pumpers something to brag about. More surprisingly, the ticker managed to register a few more green sessions and before anyone could realize what’s going on, it was standing precariously close to the $1 per share mark. On August 22, it even managed to reach an intraday high of $1.10 and some people were starting to think that PGCX really is in for a huge growth. As we mentioned in our previous articles, however, there’s little evidence to support such a claim.

PGCX‘s ex-CEO is Norman Birmingham (currently, he is listed on the company’s OTC Markets profile as “Other”) and he is connected to some pretty shady penny stock ventures like Ise Blu Equity Corp. (OTCMKTS:ISBL) and Nx Global Incorporated (OTCMKTS:NEGS). Before Mr. Birmingham took the helm, another person with less than impressive reputation was steering PGCX – John Stanton. As we wrote in our first article, he was sent to prison because of tax evasion.

But even if you leave all these red flags in the past, you still see that the pumpers’ optimism seems somewhat unfounded. The latest annual report revealed that they had no more than $202 in current assets, $373 thousand in current liabilities and not even a dime in revenue since inception. When you have those figures in mind, you’ll see that the press releases talking about acquisitions of ventures that register millions in profits every year seem somewhat far-fetched and maybe that’s why, the ticker started sliding down.

The drop was not as horrific as the one displayed by Alkaline Water Company Inc (OTCBB:WTER), but still, within a few days, the price fell from around $0.84 all the way to $0.51. The newsletters tried to break the fall, but it was to no avail and the slide continued. By Monday, the ticker had plummeted below $0.40 and it was clear that the pumpers are going to need to take some desperate measures.

They called The Stock Psycho a/k/a Darth Trader and asked them for help. The compensation, according to the disclaimers, is $50 thousand and it was paid by none other than Stock Mister, apparently, in an attempt to give the price one last push in the green direction. The two emails arrived just minutes after the opening of yesterday’s session and they created a bit of a frenzy.

By the end of the day, more than 1.3 million shares had changed hands (an all-time record) and the dollar volume had exceeded $337 thousand. The price, however, took a beating. 45% of the value was wiped out during what is commonly referred around investors circles as a “bloodbath”. PGCX also registered an intraday low of $0.17 which is the first sub-$0.20 value registered since the beginning of the pump and we can’t imagine that investors are particularly happy with this fact. What went wrong?

Well, we can’t be sure, but let’s not forget that someone spent a large amount of cash on artificially boosting PGCX‘s price. The people who splashed out $750 thousand didn’t do it for the fun of it and, most likely, want to return some of their investments back. There is no way to prove that someone released a large number of shares on the open market yesterday, but you do understand that with drops as horrific as this one, this is always a possibility. That is just one of the reasons why treading carefully around pumped penny stocks is absolutely essential.