Grab a rising star, rather than a falling knife ONE of the great share market lessons that is often ignored is to buy shares that are rising rather than trying to snap up those that are falling. Moko Social Media is a great example, with the stock now climbing to six times what it was selling for in July after another double digit percentage rise today. You can agonise, sit on the sidelines and point to the company's flimsy revenue and lack of profits till the cows come home but the fact is this stock is on a canter and there are more reasons for it to keep going than slow down now. A Nasdaq listing promises to be the next value enhancer, given that US investors are more used to valuing technology companies on the number of users they have rather than the revenue and profit they generate. Once those sort of multiples are applied to the more than 10 million US college students that are the audience for Moko's REC.IT social media platform and the leap of market capitalisation from less than $20 million to $112 million could look like the beginning of the story rather than the end. Indeed, the normal trajectory for this sort of company is to reach a certain scale and then get snapped up by one of the technology giants, which can quickly monetise those users through their existing online systems. It is probably inaccurate to portray Moko as a technology company - it is actually more of a media/advertising company, given that its revenue comes from companies that advertise on its free smartphone applications, which carry essential college sports and recreation data. Chief executive Ian Rodwell said at this stage the 600 colleges that have signed up for the apps are delighted to have a way of communicating information directly to their students with someone else supplying the customised technology. He conceded that may change when they see the sort of advertising revenues Moko could produce "but by that stage we are a couple of years down the track." "We are already planning ways to keep our customers happy," said Mr Rodwell. Moko's overnight success is actually a very long story which combines almost a decade of technological expertise with the "rainman of US sport," former Richmond and Footscray AFL player and skills coach Tim Gepp. "Tim has been on about colleges from the beginning so he has played a big part in this," said Mr Rodwell. It is also good to have an Australian meeting these college administrators who knows more about their sports than they do. Former PBL chief and Macquarie executive Peter Yates is on the board and is the largest shareholder. The speculative buy first applied back in September remains despite the massive share price rise because of the potential for more big deals with large political groups and the Nasdaq listing. Another fast rising stock worth a second look is drug developer Invion. Run by former Chemgenex boss Dr Greg Collier and with a US clinical team led by prolific drug developer Dr Mitchell Glass, Invion has acquired rights to expand its range of potential treatments to asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cystic fibrosis, lupus and smoking cessation. The toughest part in developing drugs is getting them past the US Food and Drug Administration so the combination of using some existing drugs repurposed for inhalation and an experienced team should fast track the clinical pathway. Invion shares have leapt since my first speculative buy in February but the call remains in place as phase two trials reduce risk and bring Invion closer to a deal with a major pharmaceutical partner.