AENY: The Plot, the Players and the Shadowy Past

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Americas Energy Company (AENY.OB) has managed to reinvent itself with backing from a network of long-connected players in the murky world of penny stocks and offshore financing.

Last week, AENY suddenly announced that it had completed a merger that would transform the company into a legitimate coal-mining operation. The move came as a surprise to many, since AENY had delayed the merger – pending an additional $8 million in financing – just a few weeks earlier. With skeptics portraying AENY as an overvalued corporate shell, however, the company abruptly finalized the deal after raising less than half of the $8 million called for under its new financing arrangement. more...

Jayhawk, No Longer a Highflier, Crashes to Earth

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Following a swift plunge that cut its stock price by almost half, Jayhawk Energy (JYHW.OB) stepped forward this week to blame the recent volatility on outside promotions followed by aggressive profit-taking – a classic, if softened, description of a “pump-and-dump” scheme – with no connection to the company’s actual operations. JYHW insisted that the company itself played no role in the stock’s short-lived rally, even though its top officer profited from the stock’s big run-up before its subsequent crash. more...

AENY: The Dirty Truth behind the Pretty Coal Stock

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Last fall, around the same time that British Columbian regulators issued a cease-trading order for Americas Energy Company (AENY.OB) stock, U.S. investors began fielding bullish emails urging them to buy the company’s shares.

The Intelligent Investor Report, a promotional newsletter published by Jarret Wollstein, highlighted AENY (then trading under the ticker symbol TRET) as his top coal pick of 2009 and predicted that the company would be producing more than $100 million worth of coal annually by the end of next year. He portrayed AENY – a shell company with limited operations -- as a likely “10-bagger” for fast-acting investors willing to buy the shares early and then hold onto them for the long term. more...

IMGG Fails to Paint a Pretty Picture for Investors

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The picture at Imaging3 (IMGG.OB) just got a whole lot uglier.

IMGG dropped a bombshell on investors this week, when it revealed a major setback in its lengthy battle to secure regulatory approval of its Dominion 3-D scanning device. For months, IMGG has indicated that the company simply needed to resolve one minor issue – involving the Dominion’s label – in order to satisfy reviewers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. During a conference call with shareholders on Tuesday, however, IMGG reported that it has now fielded more than a dozen questions from FDA staffers who are evaluating the company’s device. more...

IMGG Investors Grow Tired of Holding Their Breath

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Imaging3 (IMGG.OB) suffered another major setback this week, triggering a massive selloff in its stock, as the company fielded additional questions from federal regulators about its Dominion scanning device.

By now, IMGG investors have waited years for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to clear the company’s Dominion scanner for sale under a 510(k) process that normally takes just a few short months to complete. More than 900 days after IMGG first submitted its 3-D scanner for review, however, the company is still waiting for the FDA to bless its breakthrough device. more...

For NXTH Investors, 2010 Could Be Hard to Swallow

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NXT Nutritionals (NXTH.OB) shareholders who trust the company’s sweet outlook for 2010 could wind up with a bitter taste in their mouths.

The company’s rosy forecast included plenty of hype about its SUSTA-brand sweetener but none of the actual financial projections that normally dominate official guidance. It also failed to mention a looming threat – massive dilution – that could soon hammer its generous share price. more...

NXTH and The Shaq: A Sweet-and-Sour Deal?

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When NXT Nutritionals (NXTH.OB) recently announced that basketball legend Shaquille “Shaq” O’Neal had agreed to endorse the company’s sweetener, investors rushed to celebrate their good fortune. That blessing could turn into a curse, however, if history serves as any guide. more...

Talk Is Getting Cheap at Imaging3

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Imaging3 (IMGG.OB) is learning an important, if painful, lesson: A picture really is worth a thousand words.

IMGG has been trying for years to secure regulatory clearance for a new device that, it says, can produce real-time 3D images that will revolutionize the practice of medicine. Now that yet another projected date for approval of the device has passed without results, however, investors are starting to ask a very basic question. Specifically, they want to know why IMGG has failed to share the remarkable images that its device is supposed to be capable of delivering. more...

AWSL Chairman Has Some Skeletons in His Closet

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Gilles Trahan, the chairman of both Atlantic Wind & Solar (AWSL.PK) and MSE Enviro-Tech (MEVT.PK), better hope that investors don’t start judging him by the company he keeps.

After all, Trahan has ties to Basil Meecham – a past target of securities regulators – that date back at least eight years. The two men remained connected as Facebook friends as recently as last month, although they have since taken steps to block visitor access to their personal information. The Street Sweeper captured evidence of that Facebook friendship weeks ago, however, in anticipation of such changes. more...

The Picture Gets Even Fuzzier at Imaging3

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Imaging3 (IMGG) is now fielding questions from two regulatory agencies.

More than two years after submitting its Dominion 3-D scanner for clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, IMGG is still trying to address concerns raised by the agency about its breakthrough medical device. Meanwhile, the company is now attempting to overcome issues raised by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – which derailed its annual shareholder meeting -- as well. more...

NXTH & CLRH: Connected Like Siamese Twins

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Investors blinded by the pretty stock prices for NXT Nutritionals (OTC.BB:NXTH) and Clear-Lite Holdings (OTC.BB:CLRH) might want to take a closer look at other – less attractive – traits shared by these two companies.

After going public through reverse mergers with shell companies earlier this year, both NXTH and CLRH promptly hired the same part-time CFO to keep their books in order. They also retained the same auditing firm in Boca Raton – a region viewed by regulators as a hotbed for securities-related fraud – to bless their financial statements. They even chose the same tainted public relations firm to attract potential investors. (That firm failed to answer questions about the companies for this story.) more...

IMGG Investors Still Waiting for Judgment Day

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The story at Imaging3 (OTC.BB:IMGG) is following the same familiar plotline made famous by the popular movie “Groundhog Day.”

Every morning, IMGG investors wake up with high hopes that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will finally clear the company’s Dominion 3-D scanning device for sale. Every night, they return to bed with a sense of disappointment lightened only by the chance that tomorrow will somehow be different and bring the good news they so crave. more...

Are Those Dark Spots on That X-Ray of Imaging3?

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Based on comments made in a spring episode of “Health This Week with Don Baillargeon” – a program hosted by a repeat target of securities regulators – Imaging3 CEO Dean Janes has been waiting six months for an urgent phone call from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that he will probably never receive.

Janes appeared on the show in May with high hopes that the FDA was finally nearing approval of IMGG’s Dominion 3-D imaging device. Although two years had passed since IMGG first submitted the Dominion for FDA review, using a speedy 510(k) process that often takes just months to complete, Janes acted as though the agency’s long-awaited blessing might come at any moment. more...

The Truth Behind the New 'Salt-Free' Diet at AWSL

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When Atlantic Wind & Solar (AWSL) issued its latest investor update, the company buried a potential bombshell – disclosing plans to abandon a celebrated project with Morton Salt – beneath announcements about a revised business strategy and a new corporate headquarters.

Just two months ago, AWSL claimed that it had landed a contract with Morton to carry out a feasibility study for the generation of renewable power at the company’s big salt-producing facility in the Bahamas. Back then, at least, AWSL seemed excited by the deal and the opportunities it might bring. more...

Surgeon Seeks to Cut Influence of Device Industry

Charles Rosen is a soft-spoken spine surgeon who has earned the kind of reputation that’s normally assigned to a hard-nosed cop.

He first blew the whistle on a giant healthcare company a decade ago, when a hospital owned by Tenet – the second-largest publicly traded hospital chain in the country – failed to inform him that its operating-room sterilizer had not been working properly for months. As the hospital’s chief of surgery, Rosen was asked to minimize the problem during an upcoming inspection by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Instead, Rosen sounded an alarm during JCAHO’s annual visit and promptly resigned in protest when the agency – which counted one of the hospital’s directors among its own board members – ignored his concerns. more...

Force Protection Gives Management Royal Treatment

Last month, as Force Protection (FRPT) prepared to slash its workforce in an effort to save money, the company quietly adopted a new policy that could expand the bonus awarded to its well-paid CEO.

Michael Moody, who earned seven figures as Force Protection’s brand-new CEO in 2008, could score even more this year despite plummeting orders for the company’s military vehicles. Originally, Force Protection guaranteed Moody a salary of at least $540,000 – and a bonus that could equal up to 75% of that amount – under his formal contract with the company. With a recent amendment to that agreement, however, Force Protection essentially removed any limits on Moody’s 2009 cash bonus.