Occasionally, companies formally address speculation via the ASX.

That speculation usually carries a great deal of weight: for example, Berkeley Energia (ASX:BKY) had to respond to Spanish media reports it was about to become a top 10 uranium producer.

It is up 189 per cent since Christmas.

But is not often a company will use the ASX markets announcements platform (MAP) to respond to a single post on popular stock gossip forum HotCopper.

Late on Thursday sunscreen maker Advance Nanotek (ASX:ANO) put out an announcement titled “response to optimistic share price projections”.

It was not an evaluation from a research house, but rather referred to a thread posted on HotCopper on Wednesday entitled “Zinxation will be a Senxation: $10 share price soon”, referring to Advance’s brand of sunscreen.

In it, shareholder ‘thotcop’ spent 664 words detailing why the ANO share price would soon hit highs of $10, which would be a 694 per cent premium to the current trading price of $1.26.

Advance Nanotek (ASX:ANO) shares over the past week.

“We still haven’t seen much new or development on the first of ANO’s consumer product Zinxation but I am confident that it will explode in sales upon launch and we’ll be seeing a share price of $10 or even more in the next 12-24 months,” thotcop wrote.

“But the real trump card has still not been played by ANO. There is a growing awareness in the media which is emerging about chemical-vs-natural zinc sunscreens and the benefits of Zinc-based sunscreens on our bodies and also the environment, eg: Coral.

“ANO’s MD Geoff Acton is basically the Nikola Tesla of the year 2019 – a marketing genius, decades ahead of his time. The only difference between Geoff and Tesla IMO is that Tesla died penniless whereas Geoff will die a billionaire.”

The thread had just one reply, from user ‘tomhagen’: “Worst post on the ANO forum. This type of unrestrained fantasy based ramping should be reserved for companies involved with lithium nourished marijuana built on the blockchain. Not a honest, hard-working, cashflow positive company that is walking its talk.”

Mr Acton decided to address the speculation, in spite of the fact his company had not received an aware letter from the ASX.

“We want to make clear the board does not foresee a $10 share price due to capacity limitations and the current size of the zinc market,” he said.

His announcement was posted automatically to the Advance Nanotek subforum on HotCopper, where it received six replies, six times the amount of thotcop’s post, in the space of an hour.

“That crazy thotcop just got a serve!” wrote user ‘vestro’.

Featured Companies

You might be interested in