Back in March I popped into del.icio.us the stock charts of 10 listings that were sent to me via email spam. I was curious whether the blind feeds led to any quick ramp-up, in days or weeks, via speculation or otherwise. Hit “read more” for the results.

Back in March I popped into del.icio.us the stock charts of 10 listings that were sent to me via email spam. I was curious whether the blind feeds led to any quick ramp-up, in days or weeks, via speculation or otherwise.

First up was Martin Neutraceutical (MTNU.PK), which arrived in an email dated 2/23. On February 23rd, the stock traded at around $1; it popped up a few cents around the 24th, then began a long and steady decline. It is now trading at $0.14.

Yukon Gold Corporation (YGDC.OB) only trades once or twice a day, according to the daily chart and volume totals. First noticed March 8, the stock has basically flatlined since then, and trades at $1, off from $1.10-1.20 in March.

Humatech Inc (HUMT.OB) went for around 10 cents on March 9. It peaked there and is 7 cents today. Not bad, as long as you only own 100 shares.

OSSI.PK no longer trades; it is now TSAS.PK and only has a 5-day chart. So much for that.

On March 10 I was urged to buy Sivalt Systems (SVTL.OB) at just under $2 a share. What a missed opportunity: the stock never broke $2 and is down to $1.35 today.

Well, four to go, or three, rather—KSIG.OB is now KSIGE.OB. I can’t follow the trend, but it’s at 6 cents, so that’s not a good sign.

Anywhere MD (ANWM.PK), unlike the other stocks on this list, actually has news items and a six-month chart. What it doesn’t have is performance: The stock had dropped from $0.20 to $0.10 before the email spam and never recovered, trading at $0.05 today after a brief spike down to almost $0.

The charts of Yap International (YPIL.PK) and DSI Direct Sales (DSDI.P) look like the other ones above: on the decline before the spam, no different after. Both have a value half of that when the spam first hit my in-box.

That’s nine in a row gone sour. Stock spam seems to operate on the “even a broken clock is right twice a day” theory, though, because my inventory review did uncover a winner.

Gaming Transactions (GGTS.PK) came to me on March 12 with a forecast in the email of “near term target 0.45, long term target 1.00.” Nice estimating: from a price around 30 cents in mid-March, the stock burst past $0.50 in early April and is trading at $0.74 after peaking at $0.90. An investment in this stock would have nearly tripled in value in three months, a pretty good return on some junk mail.

I’m not a financial analyst, so I won’t get into the specifics of ROI for my experiment. The findings are clear, though: you too can have a winner playing stocks in spam messages—you’ll just have a lot of losers along the way.