I had an article about shady stock trading published online this month

[Lucky Luciano]

The founder of the site where it was published saw me write something to someone i na stock trading message forum and asked me to write an article. it is a site geared towards investing for women. See it for yourself!

http://www.womensinvestmentnetwork.com/newsletters/members/news.php?np=yes&issue=206/206

Go to the fourth article about "Penny Stocks" in the link.

By Owen Davey

I have always been a skeptic. When someone tells me that there is a great opportunity to make a lot of money if only I purchase some stock, I immediately think the opposite move is the right idea, especially when that stock is a small-cap or a micro-cap. The first thing I think is, "What do they have to gain by telling me this?" "What makes me so special that I deserve to be ‘in the know’?" Of course, usually I have deserved nothing, so there must therefore be an ulterior motive at work here.

Why do self-proclaimed gurus like to push these stocks onto the unsuspecting and less skeptical public? These companies typically have what is called a "small float." This means that the number of shares in the hands of the public is very small. It might be the case that a $5 stock only has three million outstanding shares for example. When this is the case, the volume is usually very small and the stock price movements are not interesting. However, when touts can sell the idea of buying this stock, and generate a lot of volume, the small number of shares coupled with the sudden demand can cause the stock to move very fast to the upside. When the stock gets high enough and the buying volume is still strong, the initial holders of the company then dump their shares with the price being supported by all the buyers who are now left holding the bag. At this point, there are only sellers. What went up fast must now come down fast. There is no other way. The company is going nowhere and there will be no more buyers. Period. This is called the pump and dump scam.

-SNIP-

[swag]

1. Tasty.

Thank you!

[Lucky Luciano]

3. tasty was not what I was expecting!

[Swede]

2. Well good for you LL.

Good advice too.

[RagingInMiami]

4. I'll give you what you're looking for

I'm a journalist, spent eight years writing for dailies. Now I'm a freelance magazine writer.

You did a hell of a job and this is why:

First of all, you had a good opening sentence. You capture the reader from the first line. You make the reader want to read on because he/she wants to know why the hell are you a skeptic.

Then you immediately move on to a topic most people can relate to. I speak for myself but I've been approached by countless people who tell me about great money-making opportunities.

Then you quickly move on to explain the whole point of the article, the "nut graph" as we say. The "small float" sentence. It is not buried in the story. You don't ramble on with your intro paragraph, which might not be hard considering you started it in the first person.

But where I really think you succeed is that you waited until all this to introduce a phrase like "quantitative areas of finance with derivatives contracts", which is where I stopped reading, by the way.

That shit bores me, even though it's important. But the truth is, you already explained in layman's terms, which is why I like the article, even if it was geared towards women.

But if you would have started with a sentence like that, you would have lost the readers you were trying to target. You would have reached the readers that already know what you are saying.

Does this all make sense? I'm a little drunk now, so I might be rambling on myself.

[Lucky Luciano]

5. I most definitely appreciate your remarks

Since I am a mathematician, I have always been weak with my writing because I would never do it - ever....Posting on DU and a couple other message boards I think has improved my writing significantly.

I wonder if it would be better to remove the "quantitative" phrase altogether since it is not really relevant to the article. The reason I put it there was because it was a bit self-serving. Afterall, I am also marketing myself with the article so I wanted to make sure that someone who knows something about that might notice and want to contact me.

I especially appreciate your comments though given your background!

:toast:

[RagingInMiami]

6. The word quantitative doesn't do anything for anybody

Except to those who are already familiar with it. But if you're explaining the concept in layman's terms, is it really necessary to use that word?

They get the message already. You spoke it loud and clear in very simple prose. That word caused me to stop reading. The only time I read articles with that type of jargon in it is when I have to write a business article and I need to do research. But that's part of the job.

Journalism is called "mass communications" for a reason. You want to be able to communicate an effective message to the masses with as little confusion as possible.

If anything, I would place those words at the bottom of the article. It really does break the flow of prose you had going.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. Gotcha dude...

Thanks....it was really not necessary for the article...especially given that I did mention the quantitative snippet for my background info at the bottom of the article. Other than that, I did stick to the more layperson style.

Good comments.

[Tsiyu]

8. How very way cool

to use proper Anglish n' all

:yourock:

[Lucky Luciano]

9. I haves no idear whut anglish is!