I’m not entirely surprised, nor am I particularly worried, to see index futures in the red this morning. The equity market’s heroic rise last week may have put stock prices a little too far ahead of their actual values. Having had a weekend to think about it, investors are experiencing a little buyer’s remorse…and Bank of America (BAC) was the catalyst. It’s still too soon to call a short-term top though; let’s just use caution and common sense here.

The biggest threat I see are two wide gaps for the NASDAQ Composite’s chart. The market might be able to tolerate one, but two big ones? I foresee enough selling to fill them both. Unfortunately, if both gaps are filled, it will also be the result of a big enough pullback to inspire more selling.

Bottom line - I don’t see now as the time to be proactive. Let’s observe early this week, and respond. I’ve got a feeling the euphoria is going to wear off soon. If the dust settles and the emperor isn’t wearing any pants, I don’t want to be around to see it/

By the way, Stockgroup Information Systems (SWEB) has added some nice talent to its board of directors. Janet Scardino is now helping steer the financial media/community site into the future. Her experience is top-notch too - should be a true asset rather than just a high-profile name to tout. Check out some of her CV….

• Currently the Chief Marketing Officer of The Knot Inc (KNOT)
• Former Executive V.P. of Reuters Group PLC (TRI) (many parallels to Stockgroup)
• Former Sr. V.P. of International Marketing for AOL
• Former managing director of Disney Channel Italy
• Former V.P. of International Marketing for MTV

Not a bad person to have on your side, huh? I think she brings something to the table that’s deliberately outside of the equity market world. Considering Stockgroup is ultimately targeting retail investors (even via their institutional offerings), Scardino’s experience could help hit that target.

Nothing else for this morning, though be sure to check the blog again later on today. There are a couple of themes I’m researching or gathering data for, and I should have these ready sometime within the next few hours.

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It may have been a while in the coming, but sometimes things can be worth the wait. Stockgroup Information Systems (SWEB) announced today they’ve officially struck a deal with Yahoo! Canada to have their StockHouse content featured on the Yahoo! Canada Finance home page.

Basically, this puts Stockgroup’s primary web property - StockHouse - front and center with a big chunk of Canadian investors. In fact, Yahoo! Canada Finance is the biggest investment-oriented portal the country offers.

The benefit should be clear here….exposure, eye-balls, traffic, etc. StockHouse is going to be introduced to a bunch of new people - the secret recipe for growth. Once the new browsers make their way to the StockHouse site, its inherent ’stickiness’ will do the rest.

By the way, for those of you who already saw the StockHouse link on the Yahoo! Canada Finance page and thought that was ‘the deal’, you’re not alone…I thought that was it too. As it turns out, the original idea was much more than that; it just got put on hold. The small link you and I were looking at before was apparently nothing compared to what it’s supposed to be now.

The deal was perfectly timed too. The new StockHouse site has shed its ‘beta’ status and is now live. And none too soon either….I think the site’s tweaking dampened the sell-ability of it (not to mention diverting resources from the marketing effort). With the tinkering complete, the stock may start to get some deserved attention.

Speaking of the stock, take a look at the chart below. SWEB’s slide from a peak at $1.45 to the recent low of 36 cents pretty much mirrors the point when the new website was started to when it was finished. We’re not entirely surprised to see the stock perk up lately, now that the site is done.

Is it time to start wading back into Stockgroup’s waters? It may well be; someone seems to think so anyway. Accumulation has been huge since the stock has gotten this low. And why not? The company has never been better-positioned for revenue growth, and the current market cap is right around last year’s revenue total. We think that’s about half of what its valuation should be.

In the meantime, here’s the Yahoo! Canada Finance news release.

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We’ve been talking about it here at the Small Cap Network for months now. But, since it was officially unveiled by the company this morning, we figure we may as well help spread the word…

The new stockhouse.com site is up and running. As you may know, Stockgroup (SWEB) has been working on the build for nearly a year, and can now pick the fruits of their labor.

My suggestion? Just go to the site and surf for a bit. If you saw it before, then you know it’s like night and day. If you’re new to the site, you can still see how easily it would be to foster a sense of community and information-sharing. They’ve got a lot of nice bells and whistles too, like blogs, groups, portfolio trackers, a rating system, etc.

The coolest part of all (I think) is that the site can handle bulletin board stocks as well as NYSE-listed stocks. You’ll see some Canadian symbols as well as United States symbols; Stockgroup had both markets in mind…plus others.

As the press release put it, it’s a Facebook for financial media. Personally I think it’s much more than that. It has a real social networking feel to it. I suggest you take a look for yourself. Pretty cool stuff.

Here’s the press release, and here’s the new stockhouse.com site.

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I’m not superstitious or paranoid, but I’d swear somebody has to have a camera spying on me this morning and having a good April Fool’s laugh. It’s been a total scramble so far (my head is spinning), and it’s only 9:30 am EST (I’m an East Coaster). If you caught this morning’s newsletter, then you already know it. We saw four news items hit all about the same time. I’m not going to rehash them here - just click here if you want to see what’s going down.

Anyway, the ‘Morning Call’……you know what? Let me rant a little first.

Most of you know by now I’m inherently skeptical, but perpetually open-minded (which may be why I need some sort of therapy). I really want to like some of the companies we follow, or even have followed in the past. I’m brutally honest, but like I said, also open-minded. So, when I learned Stockgroup (SWEB) would be announcing earnings and hosting a conference call yesterday afternoon, I was planning on taking an unbiased look.

Sometimes though, a company uses up all my patience, and/or taints their status with me.

Just for the record, their full-year earnings were supposed to be released on March 4th. They were delayed, as was the conference call, until March 31st. Fine. March 31st came. No earnings came out. The call that was supposed to start at 4 pm EST was postponed; the company let people know via a press release issued at 4:44 pm EST….nearly an hour after the fact.

Earnings were finally released at 6:00 am EST Tuesday (today). However, the company sent the wrong press release. The word ‘unaudited’ should have been removed from the headline, so they sent a corrected version at 8:44 am. They also changed the conference call start time from 9:05 am to 9:00 am…..about 15 minutes before the event began.

I’m sorry, but what the *$%#@ is going on up there? I know stuff happens that’s out of your control sometimes, but quarterly reports and press releases are fairly routine stuff. If they can’t do those simple things, I can’t help but wonder what else is a total cluster-#$@*& for the company. Geez.

OK, as far as the market is concerned, today’s strong open (and gap) is bearish for me, though only for the day. I refer you back to the message I’ve been sending in most of the morning calls the last few days…traders are wishy-washy, and can’t commit to a trend. The result is a range-bound market. So, I’m not impressed by the early gains.

Pick of the Day: ICT Group (ICTG). Nice chart…breaking above some key resistance lines. Terrible fundamentals, yet, the stock is still pointed higher now. This is not the kind of thing I see as an investment…at least not yet. It’s strictly a trade (and a high risk one at that). I guess I’m just a sucker for stocks that are at multi-year lows, but also look like they’re getting turned around. I’d do some serious research before doing anything else though, as I know very little about this company…there may be a ticking time bomb buried in the books.

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OK, looks like small cap company Stockgroup Information Systems (SWEB) finally released their quarterly and annual numbers this morning. We’ve got the summary here (they look pretty good), but we’ll also remind you they’ve rescheduled the conference call for 9:05 am EST today. We have the dial-in number below, but first, the results…

Revenues were actually up; for the three month period, total sales moved to $3.8 million versus $2.3 million for the same quarter a year ago. On a full-year basis, 2007’s $14.1 million almost doubled 2006’s $7.7 million.

EBITDA for the quarter came in at a loss of $922K, where they made a $133K profit for Q4 of 2006. For the year, the EBITDA was a loss of $3.7 million, compared to a loss of $622K the year before.

What happened to earnings? Two words…web site. Stockgroup spent the better part of last year (and apparently a few million dollars) upgrading their StockHouse web site, and it wasn’t free. It was, however, an investment that shouldn’t require any further development. Why? The beta-test site became the ‘official’ site this past weekend.

As for the top line components, there’s some encouragement. Advertising sales (the banner ads you see on the Stockhouse site) generated $1.1 million in revenues last quarter…a hair better than the same quarter a year ago. For the year, the $4.0 million in ad revenue was about $200K higher than last year’s figure.

All in all that’s not bad, because the uncertainty of the new site made it a tough product to sell to advertisers. With a clear product in place, those numbers should be ready to grow.

The licensing/subscription component also improved, from $1.2 million for Q4 of 2006 to $2.7 million in Q4 of 2007. For the year, Stockgroup drummed up $10.2 million in subscription business, up from last year’s total of $4.0 million. A combination of the old mobile finance business of Telecommunications Systems Inc. (acquired in January of last year) business and their institutional-level data product remain the mainstays on this front.

The news release had a pretty detailed summary of 2007, and an equally thorough outlook for 2008. Click here if you want to see it.

If instead you’d rather ask questions – or at least hear them asked – don’t forget there’s going to be a conference call early Tuesday.

To participate in the call/webcast, just dial 1-866-400-3310 a few minutes before the 9:05 am EST start time. Or if you only want to listen in, you can do so via the web using Windows Media Player. Visit http://www.stockgroup.com/ to connect to the webcast.

There will also be a replay of the webcast available via the Stockgroup website for a few days afterwards.

Our take: The company has never had a problem generating cash flow or growing the top line. Now that the new site is in place and the expense is behind them though, the company needs to start doing something about the bottom line – a reality CEO Marcus New addressed briefly in the news release. I suspect that will be the focus for most of the call.

In the meantime, what you have with Stockgroup is $16.7 million market cap for a company doing $14.3 million in annual sales…and growing them consistently, even if slowly.

I wasn’t an enthusiastic fan when the market cap was pushing $50 million. But, with a price tag $16.0 million and profitability now in view for late 2008, my curiosity is peaked again. I’ll be on the call for sure.

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Sorry I haven’t had a chance to get to all your small cap questions lately. Between V2k (VTOK) and Bio-Matrix (BMSN), I haven’t had much time to get to them. That’s all going to change today though. Anybody who’s sent in a question to the Small Cap Network within the last couple of weeks is about to get an answer…or at least a response. I’ll put them all here in the blog so everyone else knows what other readers are thinking.

1) Hi, Can you provide a recent Balance Sheet for Bio-Matrix?

A. Sure, though I don’t think it means much for this particular stock pick. They have next to nothing. They’re staying afloat by issuing a little debt ($50K for the last round) until they can get licensed…which should be (hopefully) in less than a couple of months. Here’s the last balance sheet: http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/fetchFilingFrameset.aspx?dcn=0001157523-08-001453&Type=HTML

2) Hi Can you recommend a small cap company like mos (Mosaic), pot (Potash) or mon (Monsanto)? Would like to find one to invest in.

A. I can’t, but if you have a brokerage account you may have a screener that could do the job. Yahoo’s stock screener is actually not bad, though I don’t know if you can get that detailed with the industry. MSN’s isn’t bad either. Agriculture has been a good one of late though…maybe worth a look. Here are the screener sites:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/finder/customstocksdl.asp

http://screen.yahoo.com/stocks.html

3) On their (Heritage Capital - HCPC) website they show they close a $672,000,000 BCLOC loan. Their current listing price on the otc.bb is .0004. There has been a lot of talk on Allstocks and IHUB forums that it could explode into the pennies after the funding clears. Any thoughts?

A. I’m nowhere near as enthusiastic as anybody on the boards. Sounds like a pump and dump. I’d steer clear.

4) Delcath (DCTH) Believe this company (Delcath - DCTH) fits the profile of the type of companies your profile. 1. $40mill cap 2. about 18mill cash 3. pIII liver cancer study 4. multiple pII liver cancer studies 5. published data thus far has been outstanding (70%+ response rates) 5. NCI partnership 6. Huge upside on FDA approval (could see in the next 12-18 months)

A. Not bad. We’re including it here so our readers can make the decision for themselves. Thanks.

5) Is ZUPC completely worthless now. Is the company still here?

A. It’s still ‘alive’, though barely. We dumped them long ago. Yeah, basically worthless (in more ways than one).

6) i cant understand why you aren’t recommending shorting - this is a phenomenal bull market for shorting - one of the best in years - and i can’t understand why you aren’t recommending short positions - you just plain short every rally and will succeed a minimum of 3 out of five times - the shorts not working you just cover - no big deal at around 7 bucks a trade

A. Oh, we don’t disagree. We personally don’t mind shorting, but not everybody on our list can, or wants to. For those folks there’s always the option of a short ETF or put options. Point well made though…if you’re not playing the downside, you’re missing opportunities.

7) You wrote up a report on SWEB I believe and was wondering how you feel about that now with these big ups and downs. I have held onto it and actually have owned it for sometime. Also could you give any thoughts on ATML.

A. There’s been more down then up for StockGroup, but here’s what we see now…the stock is a nice value idea. I also think the company has been distracted by the new website, which cost more and took longer than they planned. It’s over now though, so maybe they can get something going. Personally, I love the concept of what they do. They just haven’t made enough money (or progress) to justify the share price….at least not yet. Maybe 2008 will be the breakout year (not out of the realm of possibility). At this point you have more upside than downside, I think. As for ATML, I’m torn.

8) Hello, I’m interested in investing in ADR’s but do not want a mutual fund type of investment. Can you recommend sources for independent investors to purchase them for their portfolio?

A. Not exactly sure what you mean here, but I think this will answer…..an ADR is just a single foreign stock traded on an American exchange. As long as you have a brokerage account, you can buy anything any U.S. exchange trades. Technically it’s not direct ownership of foreign stock, which is either difficult or impossible to do for most retail investors. To facilitate the American ownership of foreign stocks, a company will buy foreign stocks, and issue what are essentially vouchers for that stock to U.S. investors. It’s a basket concept (like an ETF or fund), but there’s only one stock in the basket. As for resources, find all the ADRs right here. http://www.adrs.com/. In terms of other resources, you’ll find most ADRs peppered in along with American stocks, so wherever you find those, you’ll find most ADRs.

9) Ran across this on spng from Beacon (traders notes) Link: http://www.beaconequity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=885&Itemid=73 Does this mean it is now a good entry point on spng. Thanks for the input

A. It should mean it, but nothing has helped SPNG yet. So, no.

10) Can you tell us what has happened to or the latest info on Source Petroleum Inc. (SOPO). The stock seems to still be trading but the last news information they released was in 2007. I cannot find a quarterly report and the web site Source-Petroleum.com has been taken down.

A. I can’t find anything either, which is never a good sign. They also stopped reporting to the SEC, which is a particularly bad sign. I say take the non-presence at face value….they’re dead or near death.

11) Hello. Thank you so much for the stock picks over the last several months. You guys do a great job. I was wondering if you could find out the first couple locations of the kiosks that are going to open up selling the window treatments, etc. I like to see things first hand, and this will allow me to get an early read on the worthiness of this extension. Thank you.

A. I can’t, because they don’t want anybody to know (including me) for proprietary reasons. I can show you one though….it’s then image nearby.

That’s it for now, but keep ‘em coming.

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We received two reader questions about some of our recent small cap stocks. Since my mission for 2008 is to develop this site into a true small cap community, I’m going to ‘A’ as many ‘Q’s” as I can in the blog. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts below (if they’re pertinent). Or, if you have something to say about a small cap besides one of these two, find that company’s most recent entry in the blog and say your piece there.

All your comments in the blog are read; most are posted (provided they aren’t spam, blatantly self-serving, or whining). I usually add my thoughts as well.

Anyway, here we are….

1) You wrote up a report on SWEB I believe and was wondering how you feel about that now with these big ups and downs. I have held onto it and actually have owned it for sometime. Also could you give any thoughts on ATML. 

Thanks for the question. StockGroup (SWEB) has one of the coolest investor-oriented sites I’ve ever seen (besides ours of course). However, the growth here has just been too slow. Anybody can buy a company and increase the top line; the point is to do more with a company than the previous owners did. StockGroup is a good company, but it’s just not growing fast enough. Less talk, more action…or more results. We’ve been following ir for a year, and the hype was huge in early 2007. Shattered dreams over the last 6 to 7 months have really let the wind out of the sails.

As for the future, I still think they’ll get bought (which is what they want). But, they have to get on the horse and get it going.

Regarding the stock’s ups and downs, a lot of it may have to do with the overall market’s mood. On the other hand, the market may also just be bored with the stale story. Keep it on you radar, though I don’t know that I’d be willing to hold it indefinitely right now.

No thoughts on ATML….I don’t know the company well enough.

2) Any specific reason for the price of SPNG to be dropping?

No, and that worries me. My fear is the short sellers have taken over SpongeTech (SPNG) again. If so, we’re back to square one. I won’t see the next short report until next week though, so patience is merited. Maybe I fear too much.

It doesn’t change the reality of the situation…this company is a steamroller, and God help anybody on the wrong side of the chart when the market finally sees it. Those short could get their heads handed to them at the drop of a hat.

The other possibility is a major holder is selling out, and just needed to wait for enough demand. I’ve not seen any insider selling reports, but it would explain the weakness.

Regardless, unlike SWEB, I’m more than willing to ride out almost anything for SPNG.

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It seems like only yesterday we were discussing Stockgroup Information Systems’ (SWEB) Q3 earnings results. But, per the company’s press release today, it’s time to get ready for Q4’s numbers. They’ll announce the latest Q4 (and therefore annual) results on March 6th at 3:00 PM EST.

Just to catch you up, last quarter the company pulled in $3.4 million in sales…much better than the $1.9 million generated in the same quarter a year earlier. A key acquisition was the main reason for the bump. In terms of earnings, Stockgroup ended the quarter in the red by $2.2 million. Of the loss, about $650K of it was a one-time expense related to the development of the new website.

A couple of things came up in the conference call following the Q3 announcement. First, the issue of improving margins and increasing ad revenue was well discussed, and Stockgroup’s management had a plan of action to work on both. Second, investors wanted to know what to expect regarding the smaller revenue-bearing properties like StockStream and Reuters-Connect. Again, those opportunities were being addressed by the management team.

Why rehash the old news? Because those are the first issues and questions I expect to hear during the next conference call, which will be held about an hour after the announcement is made on March 6th.

To participate in the call/webcast, just dial 1-866-400-3310 a few minutes before the 4:05 PM EST start time. Or if you only want to listen in, you can do so via the web using Windows Media Player. Visit www.stockgroup.com to connect to the webcast.

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Remember what I was saying about Stockgroup Information System’s (SWEB) wireless service - MarketStream - being a potential big improvement for the company’s top line? Today’s news is an example of why I thought so. They just found a big partner who will be promoting the service overseas.

The story itself is simple enough - Norwegian company Trigcom AS will be promoting Stockgroup’s financial data platform called MarketStream - a package specifically designed to bring equity market data and quotes to wireless devices such as a BlackBerry.

As far as the caliber of potential partners in Norway, I’d say they pretty much found the ideal one. Trigcom specializes in BlackBerry technology, and has a few hundred corporate customers (each of which presumably has multiple BlackBerry users). Aside from tapping those current customers first, I’m confident being able to offer such a service will also open doors to a few new financial-business customers.

Though the press release didn’t explicitly say it, I think this is ultimately a subscription revenue sharing deal. And despite not knowing the exact details of any of their recent deals (Stockgroup forged a similar deal with Reuters), I think it’s safe to say even just a few hundred users could mean an annual six-figure opportunity. A few thousand users, and I’d say the deal moves into seven figure territory. Just a guess on my part.

That’s not the important part for investors though…at least not in my opinion. There are two key ‘bigger picture’ ideas I see lurking in the news.

First, this is ‘easy money’ for Stockgroup….well, as easy as money can be in this day and age. Stockgroup already designed the software, so there’s no real developmental cost here. Trigcom is doing the promotion, so it’s not like Stockgroup has a big marketing expense there either. In other words, margins are expected to be wide.

Second (and more importantly), I think this partnership plants a seed for parallel relationships in the future. Norway is only one of dozens of countries with capital markets that are developed enough to merit a wireless data service like MarketStream. Once other telecom outfits see what can be done in Norway, I look for them to start shopping the possibility of doing the same in their respective market.

You know what though? As of yesterday, even the Trigcom news isn’t the most interesting thing Stockgroup’s got going on.

Did anybody see SWEB’s volume on Wednesday? The 1.1 million shares we saw trade hands was the highest volume we’d seen in over a year, and the fifth highest volume day ever for the stock. And no catalyst? I smell institutional buying, since most individual investors wouldn’t be buying so boldly just three days after a multi-month low (nor would most people be buying when they see SWEB’s long-term downtrend).

Somebody - or somebodies - with deep pockets may have been waiting for this stock to really get to a deep undervaluation point. And, I’d say the move from a peak of $1.45 to a low of $0.42 (a 71% pullback) more than qualifies as just that. Picking up on an undervalued stock the rest of the market didn’t pick up on, they pounced. 

The question to be asking is obvious - what do they know that nobody else does? It’s mostly a rhetorical question though; the right thing to do may just be to follow their lead.

Here’s the press release.

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In hockey, there’s a rare feat dubbed a hat trick. It’s really something special too….the great Wayne Gretzky only scored 50 hat tricks in his 20 year career, and most players never score one at all. What’s the feat? A hat trick is when a player scores three goals in one game. Even if you’ve played the sport or watch it regularly, you’ve probably never actually seen one - that’s just how difficult it is to achieve.

What’s that got to do with Stockgroup Information Systems (SWEB)? After reading today’s news, I realized the company scored something of a corporate hat trick…they hired three industry aces over the past three quarters.

I know most new-hire announcements are just routine. I don’t think Stockgroup’s recent new hires are merely routine though. In fact, I think these newest additions are the kind of players that make the kind of impact nobody else could. More importantly, the three newest team members each bring their own unique expertise to the company…an expertise that’s perfectly aligned with Stockgroup’s specific need. Back to that in a second.

Today’s press release officially announced that Dana Stetson  is the new VP of Licensing Sales. His background is more than a little impressive.

Now I’d be the first to acknowledge one person can make a difference, but I don’t know that one person can make or break a company….even Dana Stetson. However, that’s where the ‘hat trick’ comes in.

Stockgroup didn’t just bring one great person into the fold. I think two other recent hires in addition to this one could mean the difference between good and great for Stockgroup.  And I’m not saying this for general reasons. I don’t like generalities. I’m saying it because each of these three guys does something very well that is unique to them, and quite essential to Stockgroup’s business model.

In a nutshell, there are three ways for Stockgroup to make money. They can (1) sell ads on their high-traffic website, (2) sell subscriptions and services to retail investors through the website, and (3) sell tools and data to financial institutions. All three can be profitable - especially #1 and #3 - even though they’re all quite different in terms of how you market them.

As it turns out, Stockgroup seems to have a resident expert for each of the three profit centers. Check it out.

Joe MCWilliams - Hired on July 18th as VP of Advertising Sales. Mr. McWilliams spent the 10 years with Hoovers (an online provider of business information) in a variety of roles ranging from Sr. Advertising Sales Manager to Director of Global Advertising Sales. While at Hoover’s Mr. McWilliams contributed to the major expansion in clientele and strong revenue growth the company experienced before being acquired by Dun and Bradstreet in 2003.

Karl Buhr - Hired on January 14th as Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Buhr is formerly from Telemedia, a provider of mobile content on wireless carrier platforms that target wireless subscribers. Mr. Buhr helped lead the company to a 400 percent increase in revenue and its recent sale to Conectium Ltd. Prior to Telemedia, he was the Director of Operations for 365 Plc. (now operating as Eckoh Plc.), an Internet and media direct response company, which grew from $12 million in revenue to $90 million during his tenure.

Dana Stetson - Hired on January 17th as VP of Licensing Sales. He worked recently as the Director of Broker Dealer Sales for Lava Trading, a software services company that provides order management and execution systems for traders throughout North America. Under his leadership, annual revenues of the company’s order management solution, during a two year period, grew over 600% to more than $10 million dollars. Lava Trading is now a subsidiary of Citigroup.

See any history of success there? McWilliams should be great for ad sales - one of Stockgroup’s biggest opportunities for improvement, as we saw with last quarter’s conference call. Stetson should be great in the effort to get more ‘big ticket’ institutional sales to companies needing to provide dynamic financail/investment content…which is Stockgroup’s bread and butter. Even Buhr, who is only distantly involved in revenue production, still has a history of improving top lines for web-based businesses. (On a side note, maybe Buhr is the ideal candidate to help grow Stockgroup’s wireless data delivery venture.)

In terms of timeframes, I don’t know if their impact will show up immediately (as in the next reported quarter). However, I do think within the next six months we could start to see significant enhancements to Stockgroup’s top and bottom lines.

Here’s the press release.