40% Facebook's supposed 900 million alleged users don't exist?

Another one from the "No way. You've got to be kidding me!" file.

If I hadn't already laid out a litany of reasons to stay away from stocks like Groupon, Facebook and the rest of everything that has any whiff of so-called "Social Media" involved with it, here comes another reason:


"Spammers create as many as 40 percent of the accounts on social-media sites...."


So that means that 40% Facebook's supposed 900 million alleged users don't exist?


Bloomberg reports in: ‘Likejacking’: Spammers Hit Social Media: 

“Social spam can be a lot more effective than e-mail spam,” says Mark Risher, chief executive officer of Impermium, which sells anti-spam software. “The bad guys are taking to this with great abandon.”

Spammers create as many as 40 percent of the accounts on social-media sites, according to Risher. About 8 percent of messages sent via social pages are spam, approximately twice the volume of six months ago, he says. Spammers use the sharing features on social sites to spread their messages. Click on a spammer’s link on Facebook, and it may ask you to “like” or “share” a page, or to allow an app to gain access to your profile.

Woo-boy! Did I say "Facebook shares in the mid-20s by December?" I did. Good. But I was wrong. Look for the mid-10s! 

That's where it's going!

Read more:  ‘Likejacking’: Spammers Hit Social Media

11 Charts Of 11 Disturbing 11 Year Trends & 11 Years of Stocks Versus Gold

Over at Zerohedge they have eleven very disturbing charts about the economy that I think you'd be wise to take a minute to look at:


My favorite is 11 years of stocks versus 11 years of gold:

Here's another scary one: 11 years of Federal debt. As you can see, Obama has more than doubled the debt created when (that idiot) Bush was president: 

Here's 11 years of Food Stamp participation. Under Obama it's nearly doubled. How's that "Obama standing up for poor people" working out for you?

See more jaw-dropping charts at Zerohedge. 

Vote Ron Paul 2012 See what the International Business Times says about Ron Paul here.

Groupon Stock Holders! Head For the Exits!

In what, I'm sure will be the second to last post I ever make about Groupon, and how much of a dog company I think it is (the last post will be a "I told you so" when Groupon becomes a penny stock), I'd like to show you Groupon stock performance over the past two days.


Pretty shocking stuff. Especially if you own shares in this company!


On Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. The Dow Jones Industrials (DJI) had a bad day dropping 249 points or -2.1% to finish at 11,454. The NASDAQ Composite Index (IXIC) closed 1.92% lower at 2,529.14. On the other hand, Groupon (GRPN) had an even worse day by dropping almost 10% and another nearly 1% after-hours! See chart:

Today, Tuesday Nov. 22, 2011 (USA time) it wasn't as bad as yesterday's market saw the DJI down 53.59 or -0.49% to finish at 11,493.72. The NASDAQ closed 1.86% lower at 2,521. But! Groupon was one of the top three losers for the day dropping a whopping 3.51 or -14.89% to close at nearly their IPO price. The final closing was 20.07.

Head for the life rafts! If anyone knows where or how they can short GRPN shares, please comment and let us all know. Opportunities of a lifetime, like this one, don't come very often.

As I have written over and over before, a business model built on SPAM mail isn't a good business model at all. They should have built a portal. They should have taken Google's $6 billion dollar offer.

I'll make a prediction here: GRPN stock price will be under $5.00 by December 15, 2012 (maybe $1.00?) So if you want to be stupid and "BUY" then wait for their 60% off Groupon share price coupons! (Or, as Karl Denninger says, "There's crazy and then there's really crazy!") 

UPDATE: Zerohedge writes, "Groupoff - Groupon back to IPO price":

As of this moment, everyone who has bought and held GRPN stock since the IPO price is at best flat, and almost certainly at a massive loss, as only a few banks were allotted shares at the $20.00 offering price, which were quickly flipped to subsequent greater fools. As of this moment, GRPN is back to the IPO price or precisely $20.00. We expect once this is taken out for the one way Grouponzi Red Light Special to fair value, somewhere around $0.00, to take a few months at most.

PS: I have made some really good bucks buying and selling stocks over these 35 years... Actually, only three. I've only ever bought three times. I won big three times. Great opportunities only come once every ten years or so (unless you have insider information) one day soon I will write about these exploits. I found these chances of a lifetime just simply from reading the news. You can too. Sometimes things are just painfully obvious. As a loser, Groupon was one of them.

Had I been able to invest huge money instead of my piddling amounts, on the good ones....I might have been rich!

Or as my wife says:

UPDATE 2: Groupon was the #2 biggest drop on the entire NASDAQ today according to Yahoo Finance:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A look at the 10 biggest percentage decliners on Nasdaq at the close of trading:

School Specialty Inc. fell 26.4 percent to $5.17.

Groupon Inc. fell 14.9 percent to $20.07.

First Clover Leaf Financial Corp. fell 11.6 percent to $5.74.

Viasystems Group fell 10.9 percent to $15.77.

ID Systems Inc. fell 9.7 percent to $5.14.

Mackinac Financial Corp. fell 9.6 percent to $5.00.

Technical Communications Corp. fell 9.6 percent to $7.17.

Forbes Energy Services Ltd. fell 9.2 percent to $5.35.

KIT Digital Inc. fell 9.2 percent to $9.52.

Lihua Intl fell 8.8 percent to $5.36.

UPDATE 3: Another from Zerohedge:

Yet another fatal flaw in GRPN's business model is revealed to the sheeple IPO buyers.

Bakery Burned in Groupon Deal for 102000 Cupcakes

‎ - International Business Times