by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | February 7, 2008 11:11 pm
Now this is what I love about teasers: We have a newsletter editor, in this case Stephen Oakes from Volume Spike Alert[1], confidently assuring us that he has already chosen the best stock for the coming year … and it’s a tiny little penny stock. Delicious!
And just to tease you a little bit, too, I saw this email on Wednesday and, almost certainly in reaction to the marketing wave, the stock price jumped 10%. It hasn’t dipped back down yet signficantly, but it certainly might.
So what is it?
The teaser is all about a little company in Texas and the Ukraine[2] that has apparently mastered “scarless surgery[3]” technology.
The fun part of the teaser is the Hollywood twist — he spends a fair amount of time assuring us that Hollywood A-listers will be first in line to use this technology following plastic surgery, so they can keep lying about their “perfect” bodies with impunity — no scars to tell the tale!
In saying that “The World’s Biggest Celebs Hand You A Shot At ‘Plastic Profits'” he throws down a bunch of names: Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Sylvester Stallone, etc. etc. None of them has used this technology, of course, since it’s not yet approved in the U.S., so don’t get too excited.
“After countless hours of research, I’m thoroughly satisfied that this company’s technology is safe, effective and as revolutionary a medical innovation as we’ll see in the next few years.
“Surgeons at 27 Ukraine hospitals are already using this technology in clinical trials with phenomenal results!
“Things are going so well with the trials in the Ukraine that this company expects sales of the device to reach $7-10 million in 2008 and increase up to 50% per year after that. “
He also talks about the fact that it’s not a negative that this technology came from the Ukraine, and how shameful it is that stem cell research and new developments are being ignored by US medical research establishment (this particular one isn’t a stem cell treatment, though there are stem cell ideas for scar reduction, too). He says that part of what convinced him to accept the Ukrainian connection is the wave of “medical tourism” that’s sending Americans overseas for less expensive surgeries.
And as is required of all medical device teasers, there’s also a prominent mention of Intuitive Surgical and its move from $8 to $300+.
And there’s more to get us all hot and bothered, too, of course, all kinds of very high numbers and potential catalysts:
“Technology that is currently awaiting an FDA[4] approval that’s expected to be handed down any day now… Technology that could hand this company a virtual monopoly over a potential $60-billion market … Technology that I’m 100% confident could push this 93-cent stock to $5 by April and to $10 (or higher) by year’s end without ever breaking a sweat…”
Volume Spike is on sale, too, of course — so you can subscribe for $995 instead of the regular $2,500 if you’re so inclined. Past teaser stocks from this company have not necessarily been massive winners, to put it kindly, you can see them here[5] if you’re interested.
But if you’re just curious about what this stock might be … well, your friendly neighborhood Stock Gumshoe is on the case!
While this particular stock is not quite at the very bottom reaches of penny stock land (it’s not one of those prayers that trades for .00000325 cents), it is awfully low priced … and that’s after a pretty good run recently, according to Oakes, “In the past 24 months, this company’s share price has soared an incredible 3,740%!”
It has bounced between 50 cents and a dollar for much of the past year, which sounds a bit less dramatic, but it was indeed down at just a few cents back in early 2006, so some kind of several-thousand-percent gain could have theoretically been registered (sorry, I didn’t do the exact math).
So we throw all that info, and a little bit more for flavor, into the mighty Thinkolator 4000 … churning, churning, and there! Perfectly done. This stock is …
CSMG (CTUM, trades over the counter)
As I mentioned, it’s right around a dollar as of Thursday’s close — and this one may well be worth you spending a few minutes researching if you’re curious, but as always with these little penny stocks I’d urge caution and patience. So often I see these recommended or teased, and the stock soars up by 30, 50, 100% … and then a month or two later it’s right back where it started. With low volume stocks like this, even you assembled hordes of Gumshoedom could move the shares up if you got a little too excited, so be aware that might be what’s happening if you see the shares moving Friday morning.
As to the actual business, it is essentially an incubator for Ukraine-developed technologies — this particular one they call “tissue welding”, and they’ve got a few others they mention that are mostly in the energy arena dealing with natural gas[6]. The “tissue welding” technology is indeed being used in a few Ukraine hospitals, it’s supposed to help with scarless closing of wounds, and it apparently avoids the high temperatures of similar devices that are more commonly used worldwide. I’m far from an expert on this stuff, so do your own research if you’re interested in the specifics (you’ll have to use their international website[7], since it’s not approved or marketed in the US) .
If you’d like to see what the company has to say about it’s plans for getting approval for their device(s) in Europe and the U.S., they have a “newsletter” that includes an update[8], albeit one that’s a bit old.
The good news? It’s certainly much easier to get a medical device or surgical device approved than it is to get a drug approved by the FDA. And it sounds like this device is not entirely different than more conventional tools, so maybe they’ve got a chance — I’m in no position to handicap their potential. I suppose, if they are successful, that they’ll make their money by selling the base machines and all kinds of different attachments for various kinds of surgeries.
The bad news? We’re talking about a tiny company with essentially a single core technology, addressing an area that isn’t exactly being ignored by other companies. Doing any kind of search on “scar reduction” on the web or in the medical literature will alert you to at least dozens of drugs, techniques, implants, closure devices, and wound dressings that all aim to reduce scarring. If Tom Cruise is really going to use one of them, let me know … otherwise, I’ll remain blissfully ignorant. And if I miss this ride to $5 that’s being predicted, I’ll have to settle for crying into my coffee[9] in the morning.
And if I invest in the Ukraine, it’ll probably be in wheat.
Have a great weekend, everyone — let us know if you look into this scar-reducing magic and decide it’s going to change the world (or your smile lines).
full disclosure: I do own shares of Intuitive Surgical, but not of any other stocks mentioned here. As is my regular rule, I will not trade in any share mentioned for at least a week after writing about it in this space.
Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2008/02/93-cent-tech-phenom-1-stock-for-2008/
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Dear Gumshoe,
Here I am, taking valuable time out of my deadline-heavy schedule, to tell you that I find your column unbelievably great.
Believe me, I don’t write letters of accolade like this often.
Your detective work is always impressive, and I find it hard to believe you have another job (which I assume you do.)
Also, I admire your lack of anger (in fact, your sense of humor) toward these purveyors of lies, myths, half-truths and dramatic exaggerations. I despise their claims because they pander to the lowest of instincts (pure greed), and they are written as if for idiots. (Who believes you can make 1,239.52% on your money in 10 days?) Many of the copywriters who create these promotions are excellent craftsmen. But they use their skills for a morally corrupt purpose.
Anyway, keep up the great work. Of all the emails I receive every day, yours is one I never miss.
Jeff Laurie
Belmont, MA
http://www.csmgtechinternational.com/news/press_010908.html
The street is starting to realize the enormous potential this company and their technology have.
Could CTUM be The Next Intuitive Surgical?
Who knows? There’s a new “next Intuitive Surgical” every few months, not many pan out and I certainly don’t have the medical or market knowledge to make that call with any certainty. The one thing that might be useful to note is that you don’t have to buy in on the ground floor to get great returns — buying Intuitive Surgical after the daVinci had proven itself in prostatectomies and started to get advertised by hospitals would have still allowed you to pick up shares at $60 or so for a 500% return. Not as spectacular as $8, but when it was $8 it still hadn’t merged with it’s major competitor, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether hospitals would buy the machine, and the risks were quite a bit greater, in my opinion. Of course it would have worked out great, but it might have given you ulcers along the way … and at the time, it might easily have been one of the much more common potential medical device breakthroughs that didn’t work in the hospital, or catch hold in the marketplace, or make a profit. If this device is going to be the next da Vinci and have that kind of potential for huge gains over many years, there will also be a lot of profit in buying the stock a bit later when more of the uncertainty is gone (unless they get bought out by a big guy, of course).
All, of course, just my opinion. I bought ISRG at $70, $90, $110 and $113 over about six-nine months a couple years ago, and I’m pretty happy with all of those purchases still. I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to buy and hold at $20, before the company had proven itself.
I am not sure I could ever overcome my conservative nature to buy a company like this. I don’t mind risk, but at some point investing crosses over to gambling.
Best Wishes,
D4L
Heads up for all the metal mining junkies. Palladium is hot news due to reported shortfalls in South Africa and Russia. Barchart show 100% buy for short, medium, and long term technicals.
A good call option strategy on PAL and SWC could lead to a quick upside gain if the trends stays intact. Remember what happened years back when Russia withheld the supply? As always, good luck.
StockGumshoe-
As always, thanks for sifting through the chaff to find edible kernels of wheat. In the case of CTUM, I avoided paying the “Spike” an unholy $995 (yikes!) and made thrice that in one day by trading his rec (CTUM). heh heh heh Actually it was your “reverse” recommendation that cinched it for me. You have such a sensitive nose for scammers and their scam stocks that I read your restrained nod to CTUM as a green light, or at least no red light. I figured that if you, with all your detection skills and experience, couldn’t find the eggshell in the omelette, who was I not to dine upon it?
CTUM was up 20% today (close $1.20) on monster volume of 16X normal volume. Which goes to show that self-appointed financial newsletter “gurus,” like broken clocks, are right at least twice a day.
Thanks.
PS. Your column is believably great! That’s why I never miss it. Were it “unbelievably (sic) great” I’d be spending my time elsewhere.
bone cleansing technology using cow bones? anyone
know the company
almost 120% gain now CTUM has new symbol
The volume spike alert assumes that higher volume equates to price increase in the share price, but this is not true if only one investor bought five times the average volume at the current price and the ask doesnt increase thereafter.
Here we go down, on this one.
To Steve Feb 23,
“bone cleansing technology using cow bones? anyone know the company?” It is RTIX (Regeneration Technologies), with a sterilization process called “Biocleanse” – they recently merged with Tutogen, which uses a different bone/soft tissue “sterilant” method (hydrogen peroxide) which is why their grafts are so white. Nevertheless, the cow (bovine) grafts, also called xenografts, and thus far are all bone and are interference screws used in such things as ACL (knee ligament) reconstructions. They used to use human bone but made more money selling that bone for disc repair spacers.
CTUM (or now CSMG) is an interesting company. “Scarless surgery” isn’t what this technology is all about, rather, tissue welding via albumin and applied heat are the bonding mechanism that interact to make “tissue welding” work. Nevertheless, unless their instrumentation technology has evolved to utilize devices that differ from their issued and pending published patents, scars are what you get. “Welding” tissue with this method significantly reduces the risk of infection and other post-operative complications. That is the neat part. However, it may be some time before they can make this technology “scarless”. Since, with the recent exceptions of gene therapy and stem cell related products, modern medicine is best at R&R (remove and/or replace), CSMG technology is an improvement over stitches (on the remove side of the R&R equation) that will help reduce post-op complications noted above. Improving the other side (Replacements) with graft processing that reduces risk of disease transmission, is what RTIX’s Biocleanse was designed to address. That is a good question without an easy answer.
UPDATE INFO >>> CTUM.OB symbol change to CTGI.OB – They now have FDA and CE approval which took much longer than expected (then the whole market took a dive). The price is now $.17
Is CSMG Tech Inc ( old CTUM, new symbol CTGI) ready for a huge run?! Price 10 cents.
Unexplained delay of one year (Big Boys meddling?) in FDA approval held this one from full potential to free surgery from sutures, staples, and adhesives. CSMG’s world-patented Live Tissue Connect (LTC) did get FDA approval in July 2008. (LTC also has EU approval.) Then market imploded. But there’s more to CTGI than just LTC. CSMG also holds exclusive license to a patented carbon capture technology (CCTI) that could be holy grail of greenhouse gas capture. Hard rumor is a Fortune 100 company is working with CSMG on this.
September 2009 shaping up as possible huge month for CTGI. Company doing end run around notorious lender who tried to get the amazing patents and technology for a steal. No way that will succeed. In court, CSMG has huge trump card. Mark Sept 9, 2009 on your calendar! That’s the court date and look for potential of huge spike in CTGI after that. Again, hard rumor is CSMG may have something lined up with LTC that could bring the house down.
CTGI got a head of steam.
Heads up. Massive increase in CTGI volume last week (first week Dec 2009), 80% buys. Just jumped past 50 DMA. Now 21cents.
Company says it is negotiating with medical device companies in Sept 22, 2009 shareholder letter. Maybe, they are close to a deal
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=CTGI&p=D&yr=0&mn=1&dy=0&id=p51055344499
Here we go again! CTGI $0.07. Success-oriented new team taking over CSMG Technologies Inc. On December 21, 2010, the company lost its key man and CEO to a deadly heart attack. This was a big setback that nearly sent the firm into liquidation. However, CSMG have pulled their patented properties out of the fire and are restructuring. The interesting aspect is the calber of the new team led by C. Richard Piazza. The incoming CEO is a powerhouse with a resume that reads like "Who's Who." This is a good place to start the DD:
http://www.free-press-release.com/news/print-1283…
For the biographies of the new team, check out the board at iHub.
Correction to my post: The ex CEO died on December 21, 2009.