SOMETIMES you can get just too clever in this business. Plenty...

SOMETIMES you can get just too clever in this business.

Plenty of price queries go out from the Australian Securities Exchange, mainly to the speccy end of the market. Normally it evokes a “we know nothing” response, although anyone who loiters in that neck of the woods knows that many of the juniors leak like sieves when it comes to getting out news that might give their shares a bit of a heave along.

This, however, gets complicated when you have reporters getting carried away with a story. The Sydney and Melbourne Fairfax dailies yesterday ran a glowing testimonial to China Copper Yunnan Australia - so glowing, in fact, that the report sent investors piling into the stock and shot its price up 63 per cent. Even on the chat rooms, where self-restraint is hard to find, the word “insane” was being used.

This time, the ASX has come down like a tonne of bricks on CYU, wanting details on how our would-be insider was able to quote details about potential deals not yet announced to the market.

CYU is now in a trading halt. No doubt those punters who bought CYU at 28.5c yesterday (compared to Friday’s close at 17.5c) will be hoping the newspaper wasn’t over-egging the omelette in regard to CYU’s prospects.

Incidentally, The Australian (in the Pure Speculation column) also mentioned CYU yesterday - with a great deal more circumspection, needless to say.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,26011785-36418,00.html