Just last week in December a group of social media influencers were charged by the Doj and Sec in an alleged 100 million dollars stock pump and dump scheme. This may have come as a shocker if you are a new Trader but to myself and many other seasoned Traders we knew this was happening all along these influencers were and I quote robbing idiots of their money. This is the reason I've been so against trading signals, alerts and even live stream Trading Sorry guys and girls no Lambo jokes Today we have a serious video as a Stock Trading YouTuber myself who has also provided mentorship and educational content to hundreds of thousands of Traders on YouTube I'm going to share my honest opinion on this matter. First of all, you need to understand what a Pump and Dump is.

It's a fraudulent practice of encouraging others to buy shares of a company in order to inflate the price artificially resulting in the pump and then selling one shares. While the price is high resulting in the dump, its influencers going by the Twitter handles such as Zach Morris Ultra calls PJ Matlock Deity of Dibs and so on were charged with an alleged Securities fraud making over 100 million dollars. Their schemes involved hyping up buying interest in stocks in order to raise their value and nature on selling them at artificially inflated prices. These info influencers often pick stocks that are low in market cap value and also has a low float.

In other words, they're not picking companies like Apple or Tesla They're specifically targeting very small companies that are often under five dollars and sometimes even pennies. This way, their share prices can be pumped up really easily. Such activities were carried out on Twitter and Discord platforms where these influencers appear to be successful Traders and live in the luxury dream of driving. Lamborghinis and McLarens Wow, Seems like all the successful Traders are driving supercars and living the dream clearly.

I'm doing something wrong here, but in reality they were running an elaborate pump and dump scheme by promoting specific stocks to the followers on the free Discord groups as well as free alerts on Twitter. Many of them have over six figure follower accounts on social media. The complaints from the SEC reads to their Legions of followers on social media. The eight defendants have for many years promoted themselves of trustworthy stock picking gurus in reality their seasoned stock manipulators.

These eight influencers were co-running the infamous Atlas Trading Group and Sapphire trading, both of which are free Discord forums providing free alerts and live stream signals to novice. Traders Some of their past pump and dump operations may look somewhat familiar to you. They were responsible for the stocks such as Expr, Gtt and perhaps one that should be very fresh on everyone's memory. CEI This stock was pumped by Atlas trading in September of 2021 when a stock went from only 60 cents to over 480.

these influencers were telling everyone in their group to buy and hold the stock for many days until 10 during that stretch. Well, they themselves sold the stocks in private. Once the stock peaked around 480s, the pump was over. Many of their followers were left holding the bag and many lost a lot of money.

I Remember reading through some of the tweets from the followers and they were truly devastating. Early on during the pump, one follower replied Zach Morris on Twitter thank you Zack Morris and laid back I can now pay for my son's surgery because of the CEI profits. However, just four days later as a stock is crashing down from 5 to 2, the same person tweets I can no longer pay for my son's surgery as I went back in CEI this morning because he heard everyone talking about the stock going to five dollars and ten dollars. According to the report, all eight men are facing at least one charge of conspiracy to commit Securities fraud From the SEC Some are facing additional charges that revolve around Securities fraud and unlock for monetary transactions.

The conspiracy in fraud charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison for each count. The SEC charges could also include additional Financial penalties. So how is this even possible? How do these influencers manage to plan such and elaborate but fraudulent activities for so long and made the profit over 100 million dollars? Let's take a look at their follower accounts on Twitter which is a social Forum that's very easy to use to send out quick text or alerts. Mr Zach Morris More than half a million followers on Twitter PJ Matlock more than 340 000 Ultra calls Also known as the stock sniper he had over 260 and the list just goes on and on.

And with great power comes great responsibility. When a group of people have accumulated such a significant number of followers on social media, they are capable of hyping up buying interest in certain stocks, which is something we've seen a lot in small cap stocks as well as Nft and Crypto projects this year, which interestingly, that something Elon Musk has also done on Twitter in the past with Tesla stock and Shiba Inu coin prices. This is simply because there are always people who are looking for easy ways to make some quick money. That's why easy money making schemes like following signals and alerts have always been very attractive for the less educated.

Traders On the other hand, there are also newbies who have just started to learn about trading or investing. Most beginners lack the knowledge of financial markets, they simply don't know what a pump and dump is, at least not yet. These are the kind of people who are likely to be lured in by a Twitter post or video or Discord live stream. Tell them how easy it is to make lots of money by copying someone else's buying and selling instructions and that's just the reality.

I'm not saying it's right as pumping dumps are certainly illegal, but this case would not be the last pump and dump that you'll see as there will always be people knowing me or annoyingly buying into these alerts. Why you should never follow Trading alerts or signals. Why am I so strongly against it? I've mentioned many times on this channel that was once a beginner Trader myself who subscribed to these trading signals and blindly follow the alerts you buy without knowing any of the reasoning behind them. And while I've made some small profits here and there, following alerts during the times when the alerts were wrong I would lose everything and more.

Here are the problems with copy trading. You receive signals from people who have already made the move. Meaning, most of the times the people have already bought in and gotten the ideal entry and if you're just following them, your entry is always going to be late. Imagine this, but a signal seller bought a stock ABC at one dollar per share and told his 100 000 followers on Discord that they should also start spying after it heated.

Of course. then everyone will enter the stock at the same time and that's going to artificially increase the price in a short period of time. so there might be people getting in at 105, 110, or even 150. and if the stock is a low float, the chances of that happening is really high.

And when Bob is ready to sell at 150, guess what happens? Do you think all 100 000 followers will get to sell at 150 or even 120? That's rarely the case. The fact of the matter is, they are probably the ones buying from Bob when he was selling at 150.. These people will have to sell their own shares for a loss. A surprise is driven downwards once again when everyone attempts to sell at the same time.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? I Hope none of you has to experience this with your hard-earned money because it's happened to me many times, many years ago. Number two: You wouldn't know how to manage your risk if you were just blindly following other people's alerts on Twitter or Discord Would you even know how many shares you should be buying or where to stop out if the trade wasn't going your way. And even if you had followed a legit Trader Who doesn't pump and dump? you don't have the same account size and the trade planning as a Trader Who Sold You The alerts. Number three: You'll never learn anything.

You'll remain a follower who will never find consistent profitability if you are an experienced Trader Do you agree with the statement? Let me know in the comment section below about your thoughts on 3D signals alerts and the case we're talking about today. I Know I Know there'll always be people who can this way to comment down below saying: Angela Trading influencer too you run a trading community on Discord If you are new to this channel, my name is Jay Humble Trader and I make videos that teach beginners how to start trading I also share day trading tips and trading strategies with traders of all levels who want to actually learn how to trade and improve their profitability. I Do not give Trading alerts or any forms of copy trading and live stream trading in my community or on YouTube My team and I provide coaching, mentorship, and training tools to help other Traders learn how to execute their plan for their own trades instead of following others. I have shared in many videos in the past.

Why? I Strongly discourage you to follow Signals alerts while asking other people to trade for you. Over the years, I've been very fortunate that my videos have reached millions of viewers who are actively trading just like myself as well. those people who are learning to become better Traders I Truly appreciate all of you who have been watching me and learning from my videos. However, I've also received emails and comments asking for alerts or if I can trade for them.

Obviously the answer is no. Another type of comments I get from critics regularly is that I should show my trading over live stream on YouTube Homo Trader proved to us that you can actually trade by live streaming your trades. This is essentially the same as giving out alerts on Discord and Twitter no better than What Access Trading and Sapphire Trader did on Twitter And once again, my answer is no. Instead of live streaming, where I've started creating for you guys is my live trading commentary videos going over live recordings of my trades after I've already closed them many days or weeks ago.

these videos have received a lot of positive feedback from you guys. So I will keep on making my kind of live training in content if you know what I mean they are meant for Traders who actually want to learn from analysis, thesis for trade and how I execute my trade planning again. these are the kinds of Traders I aim to help with my videos, the one who actually want to learn to get better themselves. As for those who don't want to put in the work, they will likely criticize traders who are making educational videos to teach people with their experience rather than giving them something quick and easy to copy.

and that's okay. But I think everyone should read the 100 million dollar pump and dump scheme article and learn something from it like I said earlier. Sadly, this won't be the last pump and dump case and there will be many more for sure. However, what you can do is to learn from these pump and dump price action and profit from them with real trading strategies while managing your risk.

This is the real way of becoming a profitable Trader Instead of following others, hopefully you learned something from this video and will use this SEC charge as a reminder that there's no free lunch in life. If you want to read the rewards in the stock market, you'd have to work hard for it. Thank you so much for watching and please let me know your thoughts on Trading alerts in this case in the comment section below. If you find the video helpful, please remember to drop a like and we'll be back with more exciting trading videos in 2023! Happy! New Year and have a prosperous New year Blue Christmas.

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