Around November 2008 i was frequenting a message board for stocks and one of the prominent posters started talking about warrants of a chinese media company. I quickly jumped on what sounded like a great deal and the warrant purchase turned out to be pretty damn lucrative. The warrants converted to common shares of a SPAC in January and my 50 cent warrants became 6.50 dollar shares. I was pretty happy with my accomplishment. Around that time, the company who I now owned, CCME, was being touted around my message board as having a bright future and being worth more than 6.50 dollars a share. News kept coming out about new deals this company signed with large chinese bus companies, to provide TV ads on busses, and with large real estate holding corps, to provide TV ads in elevators. There were a few shareholder phone calls with the management, which to untrained ears sounded good. But to trained ears the calls sounded fishy and small investment groups started publishing negative research. And the research wasnt just bearish, the research was claiming that the company was fraudulent, had no assets, no deals and was nothing but an empty shell. But how can this be true when the stock price is going up? By the time June 2009 came around, my initial investment of 5k into the warrants and subsequent investments of another 18k into the common stock had blossomed into 40 thousand dollars. I felt like king shit and the smartest man that existed in the markets. Nearly 100% gain in half a year? I was a king among peasants and needed more. So I started selling puts to buy up more stock. About a week after my first options purchase, CCME, which was listed on the nasdaq, gets halted and rumors start flying around. Apparently one of the small research funds actually managed to make their way into the CCME office and film the "hard" working men and women there. It was nothing but empty offices with people sitting around all day drinking tea and coffee and playing cards. There was no assets, there was no business, there was nothing. By the time the halt was removed, my 40k became 50 dollars and, by some amazing luck, my options expired during the halt and were never exercised. I lost 23 thousand on the stock but did get to keep the 2k premium from the options. I learned quiet a bit from that experience but it would have been nicer to learn that lesson at a cheaper price.