Top Promoted Penny Stocks: SEEK, IALS

Yesterday, the trading session on the US stock markets was prevailed by profit taking impulses which forced the benchmark indexes to drop down at the end of the day. The economic data which took part in the performance of the major US stock indexes was the announced decrease of 0.4% in pending home sales. Although the data was better than forecasts, it was still negative so it additionally stimulated the down move of the benchmark indexes.

The situation on the OTC markets was also bearish so at the end of the day the OTCM ADR Index closed 0.58% lower at 1,422.24. This doesn’t mean that penny stock speculators weren’t able to make money on the last trading session. On the contrary, the intraday session of several penny stock market movers provided a plethora of opportunities for savvy investors to skim some profits.

Today, the OTC markets will remain as speculative as ever, especially given that online databases seem to have registered a higher promotional activity than usual prior to the market open. Below we will take a look at the major market awareness campaigns which are set to unfold in the forthcoming trading session:

TheDirectory.com, Inc. (SEEK) – The frontline promotion for today is dedicated to a limited information pink sheets company called TheDirectory.com, Inc. (SEEK). There are two distinctive third parties in this campaign called EAG Inc. and Gibraltar Advisors.

According to online databases, SEEK has been featured in a total of four paid newsletters issued by Trade These Picks, Stock Edge, Investors News Source and Premier Equity Reports. The promoters have also disclosed a compensation of $76,500.

This month SEEK has been moving between extremes. At the beginning of July, SEEK hit an all-time bottom at $0.0001 per share, but in the second half of the month the stock exploded up to $0.0022 per share after a series of press releases and stock promotions hit the open market. In relative figures this represents a price increase of a whopping 2200%.

Seek reached a 52-week high on July 19, and since then it has been steadily correcting, to the extent that SEEK ended last week at $0.0009 per share. However, yesterday the stock made another bullish jump after it closed 33% higher at $0.0012 per share on a volume of 129 million.

The first bullish spike of SEEK happened on July 16, but at that time there was no fundamental explanation of the stock movement as the press releases and promotions started appearing the next day. Thus, SEEK got promoted on July 17, while at the same time the company released a shareholder update which referred to the fact the previous week SEEK had been upgraded from a “no information” to a “limited information” status on the OTC markets.

Today we have the similar situation, because both a press release and a promotion have been unleashed on the market. The press release was issued earlier today via the Marketwired system and informed that SEEK had partnered with mobile industry leader Duda Mobile for its customer channel.

SEEK is a local internet advertising and media company which is currently valued at $3.4 million. Regardless of the recent remarkable surge of SEEK stock, investors should have in mind that being a limited information company which is trading in the triple zeros area and is currently an object of speculative stock promotions, SEEK provides for a very risky investment which would not be suitable for the average risk averse investor.

InterActive Leisure Systems, Inc. (IALS) – IALS has surged in today’s list of promotions after more than thirteen newsletters touting the stock were detected by online databases after the last closing bell.

Disclaimers show that the campaign on IALS is backed by a third party called Cream Consulting which had spent $22,500 for the advertising effort on the company.

Apart from the promotion, penny stock investors might find it interesting to note that the company has just issued one substantial press release through the OTC Disclosure and News Service. Basically, IALS announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Tech 7 Systems Inc., which is functioning in the leisure travel technology field.

The announcement is in the focus of the latest newsletters dedicated to IALS which arrived shortly before the market open. Yesterday IALS stock declined 5% to $0.20 per share on a ten times higher than average volume of 190 thousand.

Today the announced acquisition and the initiated promotion are likely to bring more attention to the stock but it is not certain whether this attention will lead to more demand for IALS shares, as stock promotions can produce highly volatile results on object.