Through late December, and into the New Year, Blasting News began an investigation into a phenomenon that was first accidentally observed, with this writer, and apparently everyone else, initially assuming that charts displayed by BigCharts.com, Stockhouse.com, and others, apparently missing consolidation adjustments, were outliers and nothing but errors. It turns out that the technique may actually be a common trick employed by companies that issue penny stock, and other stocks with no revenues and no earnings. By leaving out consolidations, the uninitiated, such as elderly couples and other naive observers, could easily be led to believe that stocks that are down over 90 percent over the past 10 years are more-or-less flat, and possibly set to break out to new high ground.
Probe into TSX Venture uncovers disturbing trend
The Blasting News investigation uncovered dozens of charts of small, unheard-of Canadian stocks that appeared to be missing these adjustments, while almost no examples of charts missing split adjustments could be found. It has been noted that, as a group, issuers of these stocks, chart providers, and the TSX Venture Exchange, appear to be able to get chart adjustments correct when it is in their favor to do so, as with split adjustments, but that when errors go against the investing public, error rates north of 5 percent, apparently almost 100 TSX Venture-listed companies' shares in total, are to be expected.
After the Blasting News study revealed the prevalence of missing consolidations, communication was directed toward various members of the cabinet of Prime Minister justin trudeau, including Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, and the opportunity to present a detailed report was made available.
The opportunity resulted in this writer expediting the study, presenting the full, seemingly shocking results to Minister Goodale and Prime Minister Trudeau, allowing them time to digest the information, and, now, the results being shared with readers of Blasting News, which has previously asked "Is Canada a nation of cheaters?" in response to the discovery of the condition.
Blasting News' investigation results in formal report to Justin Trudeau and Ralph Goodale
The full report, which is entitled "Report to Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety, Are missing TSX Venture consolidation adjustments a symptom of a serious, bigger problem that is possibly easily solved?" is available from this writer's website, StephenSinclairWriting.com.
The report lists the names of 95 companies with TSX Venture Exchange-listed shares that appear to be missing consolidation adjustments, as well as fair-use screen captures of charts from Stockhouse and BigCharts for each, and more. Detailed are how the current situation appears to create motive for a wide range of nefarious acts; a plan for renaming the equity of revenue-less companies to speculity, and their stock to speck; and how this plan might save lives. Over 2017, this writer will be presenting extensive, compelling evidence as to how renaming the stock of revenue-less companies to speck might accomplish this goal of saving lives.
Comparable to stacking deck of cards
An examination of the 10-year Stockhouse and BigCharts charts for Opawica Explorations Inc.
(TSXV: OPW) and RT Minerals Inc. (TSXV: RTM) shows that, for those securities at least, which are featured in the report, no effort appears to have been made to correct the situation surrounding missing consolidation adjustments. Examples of a chart from Stockhouse, which shows OPW stock near $1.20 in early 2007, and a chart from BigCharts, which shows OPW stock near $45, during the same period, are presented in the image gallery, and would seem to illustrate the nature of the situation, a seemingly serious issue, well.
