This is hardly breaking news as the SEC suspended trading in PacWest Equities (PWEI) yesterday morning, but I thought I would immortalize the trading suspension here and give a few thoughts on it.
Trading suspension release (pdf)
Trading suspension order (pdf)
Excerpt from the press release:
The Commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of PacWest because of
questions that have been raised about the accuracy and adequacy of publicly disseminated
information concerning, among other things, the company’s business operations and assets.
PacWest is interesting because it is the first time any Awesomepennystocks pump was had trading suspended during the pump (actually quite early). PWEI was first promoted by APS on September 12th and was suspended in premarket yesterday after a few hundred thousand shares traded hands. However, PWEI had previously been promoted almost a year earlier by Victory Mark Corp, widely believed to be run by the same people as Awesomepennystocks (they both promoted PWEI and are currently promoting Pacific Clean Water Technologies, PCWT). Also, PWEI has the dubious distinction of being one of the more blatantly scammy pump companies. Eleven months ago Infitialis asserted convincingly on SeekingAlpha that most of PWEI’s shares were illegally free trading. In an article a month later I pointed out numerous red flags with the company that suggested the possibility of fraud. I believe it highly likely that the SEC will end up suing people involved with PWEI, although that could take another year.
I provided further red flags in follow-up posts on OTCMicropcapResearch.com. See:
Another K. Hill PR from PacWest — 12 November 2012
More contempt for the investing public from PacWest Equities — 7 November 2012
Is PacWest Equities a bona fide company? Or is it being run for the purpose of selling shares? — 5 November 2012 (this is the article my SeekingAlpha was based on but some of the best stuff was cut to placate SA editors)
Coverage initiated on PacWest Equities — 16 October 2012
Previous articles on SEC trading suspensions of pump and dumps:
Hutech21 (CLGZF)
Norstra Energy (NORX)
Biozoom (BIZM)
iTrackr Systems (IRYS)
Polar Petroleum (POLR)
Face Up Entertainment (FUEG)
Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned. I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.
Wish I had read your article earlier. This is really upsetting and I’ve got substantial savings tied in to PWEI.
So what happens to stock holders after suspension is lifted in 10 days? Will the stock nose due to everyone dumping it? What would you recommend to minimize losses if I currently hold the stock?
Any insight / advise will be appreciated.
Maddy
Take a look at the stock prices of the other stocks the SEC has suspended recently — you will find that they all gap down a bunch and then slowly fade. I highly suggest not selling in the first 20 minutes of October 1st and then looking at time and sales and submitting a limit order based on the prices of other trades. I expect PWEI to gap down to around .02, trade there for a few minutes, and then trade at around .04 much of the rest of the day. The trend is for suspended stocks to slowly fade after they first start trading again.
As long as I’m able to sell it I’ll be happy.