It’s amazing how a simple 140-character tweet could help one unknown stock skyrocket in price. Of course, it helps if that post was twitted by a celebrity like rapper 50 Cent.
This was exactly what happened last week when 50 Cent’s tweets about a relatively unknown company — H & H Imports Inc. (HNHI) — sent the company’s stock price surging 290% in just one day.
The New York Post reported that on January 9, rapper 50 Cent sent a Twitter message about TV Goods, a marketing firm owned by HNHI.
TV Goods, according to Yahoo Finance, is a company that produces infomercials used for various product launches, such as apparels, automotives, beauty products, collectibles, electronics, health and fitness, home and garden supplies, kids, kitchen appliances, mature products, pets, sports and recreation, and supplements. The company was founded in 2005 and is based in Clearwater, Florida.
50 Cent supposedly tweeted to his 3.8 million followers: “You can double your money right now. Just get what you can afford.”
And this tweet: “Watch how this company blows up. Follow my lead there going to get bigger trust me even if its a small investment it will pay off.”
The next day, the first trading day after the post, the HNHI stock jumped 290%, rising 29 cents to $0.39.
It is yet to be determined if 50 Cent committed an illegal act by allegedly “manipulating” the price of the stock. Apparently, he is already invested in HNHI, owning 30 million shares valued at $0.10 each. The price surge on January 10 gave him paper profits of $8.7 million.
50 Cent has already deleted the said tweets, but retains the following reminder: “HNHI is the right investment for me it may or may not be right for u! Do ur homework.”
It is not known if he has already unloaded some of his HNHI shares. Probably he’s waiting to earn, well, 50 cents per share?
As of January 14, the stock is trading at $0.28.
