stock ticker: BIDZ

Citron Research believes the bidding process at Bidz.com leaves a lot of unanswered questions. While Citron does find the Bidz site entertaining with a unique interface, they have much to prove before it can be anointed with the big earnings multiples associated with proven business models. This report will outline some of the obvious bidding irregularities that we have observed on the Bidz website.

This report will not be a refutation to the conference call and will not address any new issues.

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stock ticker: BIDZ

Bidz.com is an online auction provider of off price jewelry and second tier accessories. What makes their model unique is that everything is sold via auction. Yet, the auctions are not third party auctions as facilitated by Ebay, rather they are auctions that are controlled by the company. In this report, Citron will expose what we believe to be many red flags at BIDZ . Citron will make a few comparisons to previous reports written on other companies as the issues at BIDZ seem to closely mirror issues we have discussed in the past.

BIDZ most closely reminds Citron of Medifast (Nasdaq:MED), which is down 70% since Citron Research first reported on it. Medifast became a “me too” company to Nutrisystems, which at the time was the darling of the market. Yet, the company was not producing the same cash flow to the darling to which it wants to be compared. (more…)

stock ticker: TNRO

Dear Reader,

Whenever you see a company based in China with management in Vancouver, you need to take a closer look at the pedigree of management.  When this management has a history of fraud with Chinese companies, as those at Terra Nostra Resources, its red flags a’flying.   Finally, when the insiders’ stock is run out of an office in the Bahamas….well you get the drift.

Terra Nostra Resources is unlike other stock promotions we have not seen in the past.  Because of people’s greed for the next  “China stock”, we believe that Terra Nostra was able to seduce some institutional investors to invest at a deep discount giving it a form of credibility that should not be there.  What Citron can most relate this company to is Optionable (OPBL).  Earlier this year, the New York Merc. invested at a deep discount and gave this small OTC company the credibility it needed to propel its shares over the $8 mark.  It is less that 8 months later and that stock is now trading at .16 cents. (more…)

stock ticker: HRAL

As I sit in my office in Los Angeles, California watching CNBC a commercial comes on for Hear at Last hearing centers.  What makes this odd, is that in order for me to go to a Hear at Last center, I would have to travel to Toronto, Canada, yet ad buys on CNBC are done on a regional basis.  But then at the end of the commercial, we understand more as it concludes by giving viewers its stock symbol of HRAL.

HEY!!  Didn’t we just see this last month with Connect a Jet (CAJT.pk), before the SEC halted its shares?  It later became a black eye for CNBC.  Amazing how advertising departments have such short memories. (more…)