Actrade Gets Caught in Internet Crossfire
Feast or famine.</br></br>That's the way it is when investors seek information on small-capitalization stocks. Usually there is nothing but company-produced legal documents, often not enough to form a full, solid opinion about a small company. But occasionally, when ardent fans come head-to-head with short sellers seeking to profit when a highflier plummets, there can be information overload. That's the case with Actrade International, a New York-based export and financial-services company.</br></br>Actrade shares have taken a wild ride in the past year on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The price surged to a 52-week intraday high of 30 on Nov. 28, dropping, after two brief rallies, to a recent low of 10 1/2. It has since rebounded to nearly 15 intraday, closing Friday down 3/8 at 12 5/8. Volume has at times hit more than one million shares a day -- all without a single analyst at a major brokerage firm covering the stock.</br></br>Actrade's activity stems from a crossfire of views on the company's prospects, most of which have been expressed in thousands of messages posted on the Internet. Actrade demonstrates vividly how the World Wide Web increasingly is being used to help -- and confuse -- investors.</br></br>As the stock has moved strongly up and down, on-line bulls and bears have responded by posting a wide array of fact, exaggeration, and fiction. Bulls, many of whom got attracted to the stock's strong earnings growth and coverage in publications like Individual Investor magazine, have predicted untempered growth rates or a buyout of Actrade.