Mix8 Mar 2018 11:45
Online share bulletin boards, a place where excitable retail investors debate their holdings in small and obscure companies, are rarely noticed by City analysts and traders.But for companies at the smaller end of the London market they are a serious business, with the power to make their share prices gyrate and their managements� blood boil.Forums such as ADVFN, iii and Motley Fool attract tens of thousands of comments a day and regularly move share prices of small companies that rarely attract mainstream news coverage.Nighthawk Energy, an oil and gas explorer, on Monday said it had uncovered the identities of anonymous commentators who had attempted to �de-ramp� its shares through false rumours � bulletin board lingo for talking down a company to profit from bets on its shares falling. Two other small listed resources companies, Nostra Terra and Empyrean Energy were also targeted.Many of the contributors were using pseudonyms, and did not disclose real personal information, meaning they could remain anonymous. One contributor listed their address as �Number 1, The White House, USA�, a person close to the companies said.It is not the first time bulletin boards have attracted scrutiny. In 2005 the Financial Services Authority fined David Isaacs, a private investor who frequented online share forums, �15,000 for posting confidential information on ADVFN � the first fine by the City regulator against market abuse on bulletin boards.In December last year a London dentist and his son were jailed for insider trading in the shares of Aim-quoted Gulf Keystone Petroleum and Neutec Pharma after tip-offs left on bulletin boards.David Bramhill, Nighthawk�s managing director, feels the bulletin boards are not being properly policed by their owners. �This is not about muzzling free speech: if people are unhappy with the company they can make their views clear, but starting an abusive shorting thread should be unacceptable,� he said.�I am an ex-professional boxer, my skin is as thick as a rhinoceros. But our company, and our shareholders, should not suffer from this sort of abuse.�For Clem Chambers, chief executive of ADVFN, the bulletin board operators are merely a forum that should not be blamed for the behaviour of its participants. �If someone called you a potato head in a pub, you wouldn�t sue the pub,� he said.He also said companies that complained about abuse or negative commentary affecting their share price tended to ignore positive comments, or �ramping�.�We have never had a communication from a company asking to take down informa
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