Suckers Only

Today's quote from the message boards:

"The longs have private discussions lists that unlike this joke of a message board are truly useful. That's where all the action is."

It's a frequently-made claim on the REFR boards, that the shareholders have this private club where they discuss the "really good stuff" with respect to REFR. And if you truly give yourself over to REFR, maybe one day you'll be blessed with the password to the private club. Or something like that anyway.

Of course a number of inconvenient questions arise:

1. If the information is so bullish for REFR, why keep it private?
2. It you guys are in possession of material nonpublic information, doesn't that constitute a Reg. FD violation?
3. What's so great about information that caused you to buy at twice today's prices, anyway?

The usual answers to these are:

1. "Because sharing it with the shorts will only help the shorts." Which makes no sense, because if the information is good and sound, what will the shorts be able to do about it? An alternative response: "Because it's more fun to string you along." Whatever.
2. Either "The info isn't really nonpublic -- you just have to know where to look" (much like with this blog), or "The info comes from the licensees, which aren't public companies, and therefore not subject to Reg. FD".
3. "Shut up. Who pays you to spend so much time asking these questions anyway?". Or sometimes, if they're in a good enough mood, "It won't matter what I paid for it because it's going to be worth hundreds of dollars a share anyhow."

Of course, it's nice to hear them admit that what they say on the public REFR boards is useless. Then again, wouldn't that include what they say publicly about the private boards? Really tricky, these people...