Chaz, I'm over in NSW and don't have any affiliation with CFE other than owning shares in the company.
It is pretty obvious that Hotcopper does affect the share prices of most if not all small cap companies when they are moving under low volume, as I'm sure you would already know the day traders, shorters and bots do also take advantage to manipulate pricing. I hold roughly 10 other companies, a few of which are mid size being close to $1B MC and are very strong companies with proven resources. Even these companies are clearly affected by HC comments, whether good or bad, during periods of low volume went the big boys aren't playing with them .
It sounds like you should stick to Bluechips. The only companies I hold shares in that aren't directly affected by HC are NCM, Rio & BHP. By your logic it must be only these companies that aren't flimsy. As an analogy it is also well known that the house of straw was compromised when the big bad wolf (the down rampers in this case) blew it down.
Traders do actually take advantage of these forums and do manipulate HC users to invest where the traders would like them to when they are manipulating prices for their own benefit.
I am sure that those who slag off companies continually on here generally only have one motive and that is to damage the company in question so they get their revenge for the bad investment they made.
CFE Price at posting:
2.3¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held