Top Promoted Stocks: WTER, PTOG

After yesterday’s bullish session the OTC Markets reached a new record high, as the OTCM ADR index soared 1.08% to 1,491.06 points. A positive mood has been accumulating on the US stock markets despite the not-so-impressive economic news coming out recently.

Today, it turned out that the Consumer Price Index had increased only 0.1% in August, while the market expected 0.2%. The paradox is that bad news at this stage may have positive influence on the markets, as they increase the chance of Fed keeping the monetary easing policy intact.

The very policy is this week’s major leitmotif on the US stock markets, as tomorrow the Federal Open Markets Commission is expected to announce its decision concerning the monthly injection of $85 million in the US economy through the form of a bond-buying program.

Apart from this major economic events, which are going to influence the US stock markets, players on the OTC Markets will also have to take into account the market awareness activities targeting specific speculative penny stocks.

Alkaline Water Company Inc. (WTER) – WTER has shot another volley of promotional cartridges at penny stock traders today. Those who follow closely the promotional activities on the penny stock market may remember that WTER has been featured in various promotional campaigns since the start of August.

At the end of the month it became clear that the total production budget allocated for the market awareness campaign on the company reached up to $3 million. Today, a stock promoter called Hot Stock Ace Publisher has spread out a newsletter dedicated to WTER, which disclosed that the compensation for the promoter was $40,000 out of a total production budget of $3 million.

Thanks to the intensive promotion of the company and the series of press releases, which the company has been regularly issuing out on the open market, WTER stock build a significant momentum which hauled the stock from $0.60 to $1.30 per share over the last two weeks.

However, last Friday, which happened to be the 13th, was really unlucky for those holding long positions in WTER stock, as it shed 38% of its value on a higher than average volume. The nightmare for long investors continued this week, as WTER lost another 34% of its value on Monday and today the bearish mood once again took the upper hand on the stock, which is currently trading 12% lower at $0.41 per share. This has happened on a higher than average volume of 1.1 million.

Obviously, unlike the previous promotions on WTER, today the company has not supported the campaign with any press releases.

Petrotech Oil & Gas, Inc. (PTOG) – PTOG is also among the promoted companies for the day. According to online records, around seven promoting websites have spread around promotional newsletters touting PTOG stock.

The third parties behind the campaign are E Marketing Group and Blue Wave Advisors, who had poured $30,000 into the marketing effort on PTOG.

In order to add more intrigue to the promotion, PTOG, on its part, has also provided fundamental support for its stock today. This support came in the form of two press releases which were published on the OTC News and Disclosure Service a couple of ours ago.

The first press release announced that PTOG had entered into a Letter of Intent with Cavu Resources Inc. to purchase 100% of the working interest, and 81.25% of the net revenue interest for 240 acres known as the Barbee/Brown lease.

Later on, a second press release announced that the company’s president, Edie Schlib, had done a short audio interview with thestockradio.com to introduce new shareholders to the company.

Both the press releases and the newly initiated promotion managed to attract significant interest towards PTOG stock, as its value has soared 125% to $0.03 per share during the day. This happened on a trading volume of over 11 million, which is more than 20 times higher than the monthly average.

Nevertheless, PTOG has been mercilessly losing value this year. In January market players could purchase PTOG stock at around $0.5 per share, and just two weeks ago PTOG hit a 52-week low at $0.005 per share. This low value has facilitated today’s rally of PTOG, whose market capitalization had diminished down to $680 thousand as of Sept 16.