Tweeter Is Not Twitter Folks
The tweets are flying fast and furious. It seems that Twitter hungry investors are rushing in droves to the wrong stock in an attempt to get in on the highly anticipated IPO. The confusion comes after Twitter made its SEC filing public last evening, noting that it will be trading under the ticker TWTR. No exchange was mentioned in the paperwork. Shares in bankrupt TWTR Inc. (OTC: TWTRQ) were up over 1500 percent as the company’s stock soared from $0.0 to $0.15 today on extremely heavy volume. Seems some people thought the consumer electronics retailer was Twitter. Shares are still up, some 670 percent at the time of this writing.
The Google finance page is even posting Twitter stories on TWTRQ’s page. The company, formerly known as Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, Inc., is currently the subject of thousands of tweets as people attempt to spread the news that this company is not Twitter. This isn’t the first time that TWTRQ’s stock has shown an appreciable spike on a Twitter announcement. The company’s stock jumped in price right after Twitter announced its confidential filing with the SEC in September, but nothing like today’s numbers. Over 13.7 million shares have exchanged hands today against an average volume for the company of 165,420. TWTR must be thrilled.
A couple of thoughts here. Although traders are trying to get ahead of the rest of us by jumping onto what they assumed was Twitter, I’m discouraged by their lack of knowledge on the market and how an IPO works. Twitter will likely not launch before Thanksgiving, and when it does there is a lockup period before the rest of us mere mortals can even think of jumping in. Did any of these people even think to take a closer look at the company they were literally throwing pennies into? Obviously not. And yes pennies. So that should have been one of their first clues. The company is a penny stock company that, looking at its financials, has never traded for over a dollar in its history. Shares of Twitter, when available, will be valued at 100’s of times more than Tweeter shares.
TWTRQ, although still trading, is obviously out of steam. Shares closed at $0.01 on Thursday. And stating the obvious, the Q at the end of the ticker was added when the company went bankrupt. Those who invested in the company today had better look to dumping their shares and saving their pennies for Twitter. Good luck with that.
Disclosure: The author has no position in the stocks mentioned in this article, and does not intend to initiate any position in the next 48 hours.
