In my experience the Stevia pitches I’ve seen are all pump and dumps. Haven’t looked at this particular one, but there’s no reason to expect a stevia company to be particularly notable, it’s just a plant grown by many farmers — my guess is that the only emerging brands in the area are run by, and will continue to be run by, the majors, like Cargill’s Truvia, and if you don’t have a brand there’s not much point in owning anything related to a niche sweetener in my opinion.
a lot of what i have heard says stevia of any kind should run up because coke and pepsi are coming out real soon with a whole line of stevia drinks. the problem is no one knows if they will be a success and the company that supplies the stevia to them is privately owned
Truvia is privately owned by Cargill, and the Stevia plant is not secret or patented or anything, though Truvia is a special formulation of stevia that probably is somehow protected. For the stocks I’ve seen, this is not particularly different than saying you’re guying to buy a company that has plans to grow corn because corn will have a lot of buyers. Plans don’t mean assets or revenue or income, they are as cheaply made as promises.
I don’t like to make broad pronouncements since I obviously haven’t studied every single company that’s touted as having some connection to the stevia plant, but since it’s such a prime pump and dump arena right now I’m still willing to bet that every sub-$250 million company being touted right now as a Stevia grower will be out of business within three years (or, more likely, reverse-mergered and renamed to become some other hot sector pump and dump candidate), and that there will be no spike in the price of Stevia that makes people rich.
If I’m wrong about that, well, I suppose it won’t be the first time — but look at the past similar pump and dumps like Jammin Java … do you think you’re going to get in and out at the right time? If you don’t know who the person is that they’re trying to fleece in promoting an unprofitable company with few assets, then rest assured that that person is probably you.
That move in JAMN from 20 cents to $6 back to 20 cents was pretty quick, and at 20 cents it’s still (and was before the run, too) pretty richly valued. That’s the norm with penny stocks that get promoted, not the exception, though not all of them move quite as far on the spike up as that one did. And if someone who seems like a vaguely recognizable stock expert is emailing you a long sales letter that says over and over the name of the stock and the great bargain it is and gives you the ticker in bold type, it’s a stock promotion — if you’re not sure, read the disclaimer, note that they were paid $50,000 (or whatever) to tell you to buy this stock, and think about why they were paid $50,000 to try to convince you that the stock is a red-hot buy.
I dropped about $20 Gand last year with 12 subscriptions and this the reason I’m a subscriber to stockgumshoe.trying to find truth in advertising. I would like some comments on STVF please. Chic
Hard to imagine how this company could be worth $30 million. Stevia is a plant, not something that can be owned, so you’d have to be confident that they genuinely have a different way of producing sweetener that will make them better or different than anyone else who can grow or process stevia. The financials are ridiculous, expenses almost doubled to over $1 million in the past quarter to boost revenue from $40,000 to $80,000, so unless you’re an expert on the sweetener market and can explain why they’re going to be growing revenue by leaps and bounds for a long time it’s difficult to take the stock seriously. The one glimmer of possible hope for them is that they just started making revenue over the Summer, so perhaps they are building a business — but it would take a lot of convincing to make me want to invest in a business trading at 200X revenue.
In my experience the Stevia pitches I’ve seen are all pump and dumps. Haven’t looked at this particular one, but there’s no reason to expect a stevia company to be particularly notable, it’s just a plant grown by many farmers — my guess is that the only emerging brands in the area are run by, and will continue to be run by, the majors, like Cargill’s Truvia, and if you don’t have a brand there’s not much point in owning anything related to a niche sweetener in my opinion.
Thanks Travis for the almost immediate response – greatly appreciated – Regards Larry (Lawrence).
You’re better off looking into STEV which I believe is the real deal. Got this from a Vietnamese news broadcast in relations to STEV.
a lot of what i have heard says stevia of any kind should run up because coke and pepsi are coming out real soon with a whole line of stevia drinks. the problem is no one knows if they will be a success and the company that supplies the stevia to them is privately owned
Truvia is privately owned by Cargill, and the Stevia plant is not secret or patented or anything, though Truvia is a special formulation of stevia that probably is somehow protected. For the stocks I’ve seen, this is not particularly different than saying you’re guying to buy a company that has plans to grow corn because corn will have a lot of buyers. Plans don’t mean assets or revenue or income, they are as cheaply made as promises.
I don’t like to make broad pronouncements since I obviously haven’t studied every single company that’s touted as having some connection to the stevia plant, but since it’s such a prime pump and dump arena right now I’m still willing to bet that every sub-$250 million company being touted right now as a Stevia grower will be out of business within three years (or, more likely, reverse-mergered and renamed to become some other hot sector pump and dump candidate), and that there will be no spike in the price of Stevia that makes people rich.
If I’m wrong about that, well, I suppose it won’t be the first time — but look at the past similar pump and dumps like Jammin Java … do you think you’re going to get in and out at the right time? If you don’t know who the person is that they’re trying to fleece in promoting an unprofitable company with few assets, then rest assured that that person is probably you.
That move in JAMN from 20 cents to $6 back to 20 cents was pretty quick, and at 20 cents it’s still (and was before the run, too) pretty richly valued. That’s the norm with penny stocks that get promoted, not the exception, though not all of them move quite as far on the spike up as that one did. And if someone who seems like a vaguely recognizable stock expert is emailing you a long sales letter that says over and over the name of the stock and the great bargain it is and gives you the ticker in bold type, it’s a stock promotion — if you’re not sure, read the disclaimer, note that they were paid $50,000 (or whatever) to tell you to buy this stock, and think about why they were paid $50,000 to try to convince you that the stock is a red-hot buy.
I dropped about $20 Gand last year with 12 subscriptions and this the reason I’m a subscriber to stockgumshoe.trying to find truth in advertising. I would like some comments on STVF please. Chic
Hard to imagine how this company could be worth $30 million. Stevia is a plant, not something that can be owned, so you’d have to be confident that they genuinely have a different way of producing sweetener that will make them better or different than anyone else who can grow or process stevia. The financials are ridiculous, expenses almost doubled to over $1 million in the past quarter to boost revenue from $40,000 to $80,000, so unless you’re an expert on the sweetener market and can explain why they’re going to be growing revenue by leaps and bounds for a long time it’s difficult to take the stock seriously. The one glimmer of possible hope for them is that they just started making revenue over the Summer, so perhaps they are building a business — but it would take a lot of convincing to make me want to invest in a business trading at 200X revenue.