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(December 19, 2006) Regulators have issued a warning to investors about the recent tidal wave of spam e-mails promoting “hot stocks.”

A growing proportion of spam e-mails is related to stocks, where someone who doesn’t know you tries to get you to buy into a certain company, the Canadian Securities Administrators said in a recent bulletin.

Many of these e-mails promote microcap stocks, which often trade on over-the-counter markets that have fewer regulations than the major stock exchanges, the CSA notes.

“While all investments have some risk, microcap stocks are considered high risk because many of these companies are new and have few assets or business operations,” the CSA says. “In addition, there is little public information available about them.”

Red flags include unsolicited recommendations from someone you don’t know, high-pressure sales tactics and wordy disclaimers at the beginning of the e-mails that have little to do with the stock being promoted, which are included in an attempt to bypass various spam filters, the CSA says.

The CSA recommends that investors never reply to such e-mails and delete them immediately. “Some web-based e-mail systems also allow you to report the e-mail as junk e-mail,” the CSA says. “This helps to increase the effectiveness of junk mail filters, and can reduce the amount of spam you receive in the future.”

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IDA fines Credifinance for not co-operating

(December 19, 2006) The IDA has imposed a fine of $50,000 against Toronto-based Credifinance Securities, citing failure to co-operate with an investigation.

The investigation in question centred on the conduct of three of the firm’s reps. The IDA had requested information from the firm following interviews with the reps, but the firm failed to respond until several weeks had passed and the IDA had repeated its request.

“This failure was made worse by the firm’s failure to initiate any contact with the IDA, before or after the deadline fixed for responses to the undertakings, to explain any difficulties in the fulfillment of those undertakings,” the IDA said in its decision.

Credifinance also failed to provide documents requested by the IDA, and made no effort to communicate with the regulator prior to the deadline for providing them.

An IDA hearing panel ordered that Credifinance pay a fine of $50,000 plus $15,000 in costs.

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PlanPlus signs on credit unions

(December 19, 2006) PlanPlus Inc. has announced it has inked deals with several credit unions to use PlanPlus Web Advisor for its financial planning and advice solution.

“PlanPlus impressed me right through the sales process,” said Richard Stefansson, wealth manager for South Interlake Credit Union. “They took the time to address all of my questions and concerns. The integration of back offices into their software was a big win for us — our advisors can save a great deal of time downloading the account information directly into the software.”

In addition to South Interlake, PlanPlus has also signed on Lloydminster Credit Union and Common Wealth Credit Union.

“Our choosing and implementation of the PlanPlus Web Advisor software has been fairly seamless,” said Trevor Beaton, manager of wealth services at Lloydminster Credit Union. “We worked closely to convert data from the desktop version we had used. The ability to download data directly to the software package has been a huge benefit. I would recommend this solution to other firms.”

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(12/19/06)