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SEC might investigate 50 Cent’s share tipping tweet
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 14 January 2011
Earlier this week rapper come business mogul 50 Cent took to Twitter to talk up a US company called TV Goods, a subsidiary of H&H Imports, suggesting his 3.8 million followers should follow his lead and buy shares in the parent company. The tweet saw the share price of the so called ‘penny stock’ company (ie shares are traded ‘over the counter’ rather than on a stock exchange) move up ten cents, and motivated a number of articles about the growing power of celebrities on Twitter.
But while 50 Cent may be a rising business man and a powerful celebrity tweeter, he is possibly not an expert on Security Exchange Commission rules regarding manipulating stock value. With 3 million H&H shares to his name, Fiddy stood to benefit considerably by talking up the company on Twitter, and some commentators have suggested that means the tweet breached SEC rules and could now lead to the rapper being investigated by the regulator.
It should be noted the SEC itself has so far refused to comment on this story, though it does seem likely one of 50 Cent’s advisors has cautioned him about share tipping on Twitter, given the original tweet bigging up H&H shares has now been removed, being replaced by this: “[My] own HNHI stock thoughts on it are my opinion. Talk to [a] financial advisor about it. HNHI is the right investment for me it may or may not be right for [you]! Do ur [sic] homework”.
Of course, the new tweet could be good news for the financial advice sector, who could now win all sorts of new business from Fiddy’s fanbase, most of whom, presumably, don’t have such an advisor on their staff.
