Cynk Technology Corp., the supposed social-network operator that caught the attention of the financial world with its skyrocketing stock price, was suspended from trading by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 
 
 The halt is because of “concerns regarding the accuracy and adequacy of information in the marketplace and potentially manipulative transactions in CYNK’s common stock,” the SEC said today on its website. Judith Burns, a spokeswoman for the agency, declined to comment further. 
 
 Cynk’s social network appears to have no members, no revenue, no assets and only one employee. The stock-price chart has been the talk of all manner of business blogs and Twitter pundits, from Business Insider to the Wall Street Journal and Zero Hedge, which has called Cynk’s moves “pure madness.” 
 
 Cynk climbed as much as 49 percent to $21.95 yesterday in over-the-counter trading on volume of more than 380,000 shares before erasing its gain to close down 5.5 percent to $13.90. After closing at 6 cents on May 15, it began its surge with a 3,650 percent jump to $2.25 on June 17. The stock rose as much as 36,000 percent from May 15 to yesterday’s intraday high. 
 
 “The issue of stock manipulation, or perceived stock manipulation, particularly in the penny market, is extremely common, and it’s a challenge to the regulators,” said Jacob Frenkel, a former SEC enforcement official who’s now a securities attorney at Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker PA. “Real companies get hurt when the entire space gets tagged as bad because of really bad incidents such as this.” 
 
 Source: Introbiz.com Introbiz offers services to buy contact information of various types of people, including celebrities such as Nicole Kidman and Johnny Depp. Close Introbiz offers services to buy contact information of various types of people,... Read More Close Open Source: Introbiz.com Introbiz offers services to buy contact information of various types of people, including celebrities such as Nicole Kidman and Johnny Depp. 
 
 ‘Buyer Beware’ 
 
 Before the SEC said the stock was suspended, it had been halted by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The halt was reflected on the website of OTC Markets Group Inc., which runs venues for trading penny stocks. It marks stocks it deems suspicious, including Cynk, with a skull-and-crossbones icon and a “buyer beware” warning. 
 
 Once OTC Markets “skull and crossbones something,” brokerage firms lock it down, said Cromwell Coulson, the company’s president and chief executive officer. 
 
 “Ninety-nine percent of investors take a look at a stock like this and say no way,” Coulson said. “One percent says that would be fun to trade.” 
 
 The surge in the shares may have occurred because of difficulty in shorting the stock, or borrowing the shares and betting they’ll decline, as well as brokerage compliance systems preventing owners from selling after the suspicious jump in price, Coulson said. 
 
 ‘Out of Whack’ 
 
 “The big challenge is how can we get the information out to help Finra halt these and speed up the SEC suspension process to easily stop these heavily promoted securities that trade completely out of whack,” he said. “They’re a waste of time for our capital markets, hurt small-company capital formation and are harmful to investor confidence.” 
 
 A message left today for Cynk wasn’t immediately returned. 
 
 In Cynk’s last quarterly earnings report, filed with the SEC in November 2013, the company reported a $1.5 million net loss and no revenue for the first nine months of the year. The bulk of that loss came from stock-based compensation, which was listed under operating expenses. 
 
 The document was signed by Marlon Sanchez, Cynk’s one employee at the time of the filing. He was listed as president, CEO, chief financial officer and secretary. A June 2013 filing showed Sanchez holding a 72 percent stake in the company. 
 
 Belize Headquarters? 
 
 Cynk said in its most recent filing from April that its headquarters are in Suite 400 of the Matalon, an office building in Belize City, Belize. The Matalon does not have a Suite 400, said Tiffany Techeco, secretary of building. She also said there is no main company with the name Cynk Technology; Introbiz, which is the name of Cynk’s website; or Introbuzz, the company’s former name. 
 
 Cynk’s website, Introbiz.com, was created in June 2009 and uses GoDaddy Inc. as its Internet domain registrar and for Web hosting services. A Scottsdale, Arizona-based proxy company, Domains by Proxy, which promises to protect clients’ identities, registered the site. 
 
 Introbiz offers services to buy the contact information of various types of people, including celebrities such as Nicole Kidman and Johnny Depp. It is currently possible to create an account on the website, deposit money through PayPal, or purchase information with a credit card or PayPal. 
 
 (An earlier version of this story was corrected to show that OTC Markets wasn’t responsible for halting the stock. It was halted by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.) 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Jing Cao in New York at hcao38@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah Rabil at srabil@bloomberg.net Crayton Harrison, Stephen West ||||| Instagram/javierthelieutenant Everyone has been going nuts over a penny stock, CYNK Technology, that has surged 25,000% since mid-June. 
 
 Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading of CYNK until July 24. 
 
 CYNK Technology operates a "social network" called Introbiz.com. The company has no revenue, assets, or full-time employees. It has also been a mystery who runs the company. 
 
 According to a filing with OTC Markets, the company's CEO is Javier Romero. 
 
 "Javier Romero is the President, CEO, Secretary, Treasurer, and Director of Cynk Technologies, Inc. Since 2009 Mr. Romero has been a Fisheries Officer for the Government of Belize based out of Belize City," the filing says. 
 
 Other than that, there's scant information available on Romero. 
 
 Introbiz is a website that allows users to pay for connections to celebrities and business people on social media. We were able to track Romero down via a more old-fashioned technology, Facebook, where the profile includes photos of him flying airplanes and fishing. 
 
 On the Facebook messaging system, he seemed to match the description on the filing. He told us that he's from Belize and lives in Boston. He also said he's learning how to fly airplanes and that he used to work as a fishery officer back in Belize. 
 
 Eventually, we asked for his number and called him up. 
 
 When reached by telephone, the man responded when we addressed him as "Javier." But after we told him we were working on a story about CYNK Technology, he quickly told us that he's not Javier and that his name is Jason. 
 
 "Jason" told us that he works for Javier, but doesn't work for the company. He said that he's been friends with Javier since they were kids in Belize. He also said that Javier is in Boston for the next few days. 
 
 Here's what we talked about on the phone: 
 
 BI: Hey Javier, it's Julia. 
 
 "Jason": Hi. How are ya? 
 
 BI: How are you doing? 
 
 "Jason": [laughs] All right. 
 
 BI: Are you in Boston right now? 
 
 "Jason": I am actually. 
 
 BI: I'm a reporter and I've been really impressed with this company I know you're affiliated with — CYNK Technology and Introbiz. I was wondering if you could help me out and tell me more about it. 
 
 "Jason": [laughs] Hey, I actually knew there was basically something like that going on. 
 
 BI: So were you surprised the stock went up so high? 
 
 "Jason": Well, actually I'm not Javier. I work for him. 
 
 BI: Wait. But why are you Javier on Facebook? That's a little weird. 
 
 "Jason": Yeah. I work for him. 
 
 BI: Well, where's Javier? 
 
 "Jason": He's actually out right now. I don't really want to disclose his business. I can definitely get a number for you guys. 
 
 BI: Yeah. So do you work at CYNK, too? 
 
 "Jason": I don't. I just work for him. I don't know. 
 
 BI: Oh you work for him, but you don't work with Introbiz? 
 
 "Jason": I do not. 
 
 BI: If you're not 'Javier' then what's your name? 
 
 "Jason": My name is Jason. 
 
 BI: Jason what? 
 
 "Jason": Hah. Ahhh like I said if you want to give me a number I can have him reach you guys. 
 
 BI: Is he also in Boston with you? 
 
 "Jason": He is here. He will be here for a couple of days. 
 
 BI: Is he really excited about the stock? 
 
 "Jason": I'm sure he's going nuts about it or whatever. We haven't really talked about it. Like I said, I just work for him. 
 
 BI: You get to be Javier on Facebook? 
 
 "Jason": He asked me to check out his stuff. I just let him know what's going on. 
 
 BI: Does he usually let you talk to girls on his Facebook? 
 
 "Jason": Uh, no. 
 
 BI: I was really hoping you could give me a little more insight into this. 
 
 "Jason": Personally, I don't know much. I just work for the guy. We've been very good friends since we were young. He recently got a hold of me and said he has a job for me. 
 
 BI: How did you guys meet? 
 
 "Jason": You know like I said Julia I don't know if I should be talking to anyone about this. 
 
 BI: You sound a little nervous on the phone. 
 
 "Jason": Yeah no, because I'm not supposed to be talking to too much people on his Facebook for him. I was just supposed to check his message. Then, here's this good looking girl and she wants to talk to me. I got a little carried away, OK. 
 
 Jason has our number and we'll update if he or Javier gets in touch. Meanwhile, we might just reach out on Introbiz. ||||| Facebook's stock has dropped by half since the IPO three months ago. 
 
 And the stock price is now well below the level at which most employees have been granted stock in the past 18 months. 
 
 This means that most current and former Facebook employees are worth far less than they were a few months ago. 
 
 Facebook's stock crash is also hurting morale at the company, and damaging perception of the company's business and brand. The impact is big enough that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been crystal clear about his desire to ignore the stock price, admitted at a company meeting that the stock crash has been "painful" for everyone. 
 
 Is Facebook The Next Google? 
 
 With the Facebook employee lock-up releases coming in October and November, this isn't just an issue of morale and "paper net worth." Current and former Facebook employees have been counting on the stock to buy things (houses, for example). So it's a matter of near-term financial planning. 
 
 With this in mind, here's what Facebook employees should understand about their stock price: 
 
 The stock crash has nothing to do with the quality of Facebook as a company. The stock is tanking because investors are radically revising (downward) their outlook for Facebook's future financial performance and earnings. The range of "fair values" for Facebook stock is unfortunately extremely wide, and investors are examining Facebook's recent results and concluding that the fair value is much lower than they thought three months ago.* 
 
 The stock is tanking because investors are radically revising (downward) their outlook for Facebook's future financial performance and earnings. The range of "fair values" for Facebook stock is unfortunately extremely wide, and investors are examining Facebook's recent results and concluding that the fair value is much lower than they thought three months ago.* The market is "re-assessing" Facebook because of three things: 1) the rate at which revenue growth is decelerating, 2) the impact of the shift to mobile, and 3) the decline of the company's profit margin based on the decision to invest more for future growth. 
 
 1) the rate at which revenue growth is decelerating, 2) the impact of the shift to mobile, and 3) the decline of the company's profit margin based on the decision to invest more for future growth. All of those factors suggest that Facebook is unlikely to be "the next Google," which is what many investors assumed it would be when it went public. (This was the investors' fault--not yours). 
 
 (This was the investors' fault--not yours). Facebook's stock price is still expensive relative to the current expected earnings growth for the company. At $20, the stock is trading at 31X next year's projected earnings per share of $0.65. Apple and Google, for comparison, trade at less than 15X. Facebook could easily trade at 20X-30X next year's earnings and still have a nice valuation. So the stock could go considerably lower. 
 
 At $20, the stock is trading at 31X next year's projected earnings per share of $0.65. Apple and Google, for comparison, trade at less than 15X. Facebook could easily trade at 20X-30X next year's earnings and still have a nice valuation. So the stock could go considerably lower. Facebook's stock is not likely to bottom until one or more of three things happen: 1) revenue growth reaccelerates, 2) margins stop declining and start expanding, 3) the stock falls to a level that is objectively "cheap," at which point value investors will start buying it. We're a long way from that level. 
 
 We're a long way from that level. The upcoming "lockup" releases will likely keep pressure on the stock--unless the company's revenue growth suddenly accelerates. Lots of you will understandably want to sell some of your stock, and the market already knows that and is adjusting for that. If you all decide not to sell, that will probably help the stock price modestly around the time of the lockup releases. But it won't make a lick of difference over the long term. So if you want to sell, sell. Although it won't feel like you're getting a good price, unless the stock completely collapses from here, you will be getting a fine one. 
 
 Lots of you will understandably want to sell some of your stock, and the market already knows that and is adjusting for that. If you all decide not to sell, that will probably help the stock price modestly around the time of the lockup releases. But it won't make a lick of difference over the long term. So if you want to sell, sell. Although it won't feel like you're getting a good price, unless the stock completely collapses from here, you will be getting a fine one. LinkedIn and Amazon enjoy much higher price-earnings multiples, but there are several reasons for this--none of which suggest that Facebook is undervalued. The main one of these reasons is that both companies have low profit margins that are expected to expand rapidly. This will drive very fast earnings growth. Facebook's margins, meanwhile, are expected to continue to decline, which means that earnings will likely grow more slowly than revenue. (For more analysis of the company's relative stock price, please read this article). 
 
 The main one of these reasons is that both companies have low profit margins that are expected to expand rapidly. This will drive very fast earnings growth. Facebook's margins, meanwhile, are expected to continue to decline, which means that earnings will likely grow more slowly than revenue. (For more analysis of the company's relative stock price, please read this article). There is absolutely nothing you can do about the stock price in the near term. The stock price is going to do what it is going to do. And, contrary to the assertions of some observers, today's stock price has nothing to do with the NASDAQ screwup on IPO day, a failure of your managers to aggressively "market" the stock, or any other factors. Your CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was very clear in the IPO prospectus about your desire to focus on long-term product development at the expense of the near-term financial performance. That is very admirable and wise. Too many American companies ruin themselves by managing their businesses for the near-term stock price. But unfortunately it means that, in the near-term, your stock price is going to take it in the teeth. 
 
 The stock price is going to do what it is going to do. And, contrary to the assertions of some observers, today's stock price has nothing to do with the NASDAQ screwup on IPO day, a failure of your managers to aggressively "market" the stock, or any other factors. Your CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was very clear in the IPO prospectus about your desire to focus on long-term product development at the expense of the near-term financial performance. That is very admirable and wise. Too many American companies ruin themselves by managing their businesses for the near-term stock price. But unfortunately it means that, in the near-term, your stock price is going to take it in the teeth. Most of the stocks of growth companies go through the painful transition that yours is going through: The transition is from "hyper-growth" to long-term growth. Hyper-growth gets extremely high stock valuations. Long-term growth does not. And the transition between the two can keep stocks trading sideways for many, many years. (Read this post for more on this process. It lays out what the smartest investor I know thinks your stock is going to do.) 
 
 The transition is from "hyper-growth" to long-term growth. Hyper-growth gets extremely high stock valuations. Long-term growth does not. And the transition between the two can keep stocks trading sideways for many, many years. (Read this post for more on this process. It lays out what the smartest investor I know thinks your stock is going to do.) The company whose long-term stock action you should study is Amazon's (see the chart below). Amazon's stock, you will note, went straight up for three years, just like yours. Then it crashed, recovered a bit, and then traded sideways for about 5-7 years. Then, eventually, when Amazon's obsessive (and admirable and rare) focus on customers instead of quarterly financial performance finally established it as a global ecommerce juggernaut, the stock price recovered all of its losses and began hitting new highs. This is what happens when companies focus on the long term. Their stocks go through fallow periods that last many, many years. But, eventually, if they execute on their vision, the stock follows through. (Also, it is important to note that you went public at the peak of the stock price. Most of the "rocket ride" happened when you were a private company.) 
 
 Here's Amazon's long-term stock chart. If everything goes great over the long-term, this is likely to be what your 15-year chart will look like, too. Importantly, though, you went public right at the top of that initial little peak on the left. So there's likely a whole lot of sideways in the future for you. 
 
 (And I don't need to tell you what will happen if you don't successfully make the transition to mobile and/or develop big new revenue streams. If that happens, sideways is pretty much the best you can hope for.) 
 
 I wish I had better news for you about the stock price, Facebook folks, but I don't. The stock might bounce around in the high teens and low-$20s for a while. But unless/until you reaccelerate revenue growth (which might happen with Sponsored Stories, for example, if they're a massive hit), there's no real reason for it to move sustainably higher. 
 
 And with the stock still not "cheap" and more huge lockup releases coming up, even long-term investors will be hesitant to bet on the stock. 
 
 By next year, thankfully, the lockup problem will be behind you. After that, where the stock trades will be a function of 1) what the market thinks Facebook will earn in the next 2-3 years, 2) whether revenue is accelerating or decelerating. 
 
 In short, you're getting punished because investors got pie-eyed and concluded en masse that you were "the next Google." This happens frequently when companies are in their hyper-growth phases: Investors extrapolate into the hereafter, and believe anything they want to hear. The resulting "multiple compression" when reality sets in is a huge bummer, but it has happened before and will happen again. And there's nothing anyone can do about it. 
 
 SEE ALSO: Facebook Stock Crash Creates A Bunch Of New Problems For The Company 
 
 
 
 
 
 * Not to get too wonky, but as you've probably heard, the theoretical value of a stock is the "present value of future cash flows"--which is to say, the current value of all the money that Facebook will ever earn discounted back to now at a rate that appropriately accounts for the risk that the cash might not materialize. 
 
 You don't have to be a genius to know that no one knows how much money Facebook will earn over the next, say, 150 years, which is about as far out as the cash flows matter, because any cash received after that is basically worth zero when it's discounted back to today. 
 
 And given the huge range of potential scenarios for Facebook, the amount of money you could earn in the future varies greatly depending on one's current assumptions. 
 
 As a result, what investors usually do is look at a company's current earnings trajectory and base the valuation on that. 
 
 You can think of this as being akin to firing a bullet out of gun at a target that is 150 miles away. Tiny changes in where the gun is aimed will have a huge impact on where the bullet eventually hits. And it's the same with stock valuation, especially for a company like Facebook (for which the range of potential trajectories is more like that from a sawed-off shotgun). ||||| Twitter Inc. (TWTR) jumped 73 percent in its trading debut, as investors paid a premium for its promises of fast growth. 
 
 The stock rose to $44.90 at the close in New York from the initial public offering price of $26, delivering the biggest one-day pop for an IPO that raised more than $1 billion since Alibaba.com Ltd. debuted in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Twitter sold 70 million shares, raising $1.82 billion. 
 
 The microblogging website picked a price that valued it higher than Facebook Inc. (FB) and still drew more interest than anticipated. The San Francisco-based company, which is unprofitable and has one-fifth as many users as Facebook, is benefiting from investors’ thirst for companies that will grow quickly in expanding markets like mobile advertising. 
 
 “The company did everything to secure the most cash for itself while leaving some money for the IPO buyers,” said Josef Schuster, the founder of IPOX Schuster LLC, a Chicago-based manager of about $1.9 billion. “You need a pop at the opening to leave a good taste with everyone. They did a pretty good job managing the whole situation.” 
 
 At the current price, Twitter is valued at $24.9 billion, or 22 times estimated 2014 sales of $1.14 billion, according to analyst projections compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with 11.2 times that Facebook traded at today, and price-to-sales ratio of 11.7 for LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) 
 
 The New York Stock Exchange trading floor is crowded with traders and journalists on the morning of Twitterâs public stock debut, on Nov. 7, 2013. Photograph: New York Stock Exchange via AP Images Close The New York Stock Exchange trading floor is crowded with traders and journalists on... Read More Close Open The New York Stock Exchange trading floor is crowded with traders and journalists on the morning of Twitterâs public stock debut, on Nov. 7, 2013. Photograph: New York Stock Exchange via AP Images 
 
 Facebook declined 3.2 percent, and LinkedIn fell 4.2 percent today. At its market debut in 2012, Facebook’s stock was flat, propped up by bankers, while LinkedIn’s more than doubled on the day it went public in 2011. 
 
 Price ‘Hype’ 
 
 The pricing puts the onus on Twitter to deliver on its promises of fast growth after earlier pitching shares as low as $17. Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo has rallied investor interest in Twitter’s rapid sales curve -- with revenue more than doubling annually -- even with no clear path to making a profit. 
 
 The company received orders for about 30 times as many shares as it offered at the $26 IPO price, a person with knowledge of the matter said. About 8 million of the shares, or 11 percent of the total in the IPO, were allocated to retail investors, the person said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. A typical retail allocation is 10 percent to 15 percent. 
 
 Still, any price over $40 reflects “hype” and makes Twitter too risky of an investment, said Jeffrey Sica, president and chief investment officer of Sica Wealth Management LLC in Morristown, New Jersey. 
 
 ‘Absolute Froth’ 
 
 “I anticipated a very strong open, but when you start to approach these levels this is absolute froth,” he said. “There is nothing supporting this range. I think this is just way, way above what realistically we should be considering a stable open.” 
 
 Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group in New York, downgraded Twitter to a sell rating with a $30 price target. 
 
 “If you’ve got it, sell it,” Wieser said in an interview. “If there are willing buyers who have a view of the business today that gets them comfortable with this valuation then those people should hold it, but I can’t get there, and I’m not recommending my clients to hold it.” 
 
 CEO Costolo was at the New York Stock Exchange for the stock’s debut under the TWTR symbol, along with CFO Mike Gupta and co-founders Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey. 
 
 Executive Tweets 
 
 After the celebration at the exchange, executives dispersed. Costolo went to the New York Twitter office to talk to employees, then flew to Twitter’s San Francisco office to do the same. Twitter’s website and applications let people post 140-character messages to friends and online followers. Dorsey sent a tweet to congratulate the company’s executive team, receiving more than 200 retweets. 
 
 More Twitter News: 
 
 “My first of four client presos today starts in 10 mins. Back at it,” Adam Bain, Twitter’s president of global revenue, said in a tweet. 
 
 Twitter’s $1.82 billion IPO is almost as much as the $1.9 billion that Google Inc. raised in its 2004 IPO and makes it the largest IPO by a U.S. technology company since Facebook’s debut in May 2012. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) led the sale, working with Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) 
 
 Anti-Facebook IPO 
 
 The price rise underscores how Twitter has so far sidestepped some of the pitfalls that befell Facebook’s IPO last year. Facebook’s offering was marred by a trading snag on the Nasdaq Stock Market and investor backlash over its valuation. The company at the time was priced at 107 times trailing 12-month earnings on a fully diluted basis, making it more expensive than 99 percent of all companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Facebook saw its stock quickly sink below its $38 debut price, a level it didn’t cross back above until this August. 
 
 By contrast, Twitter decided to list on the New York Stock Exchange and chose Goldman Sachs to lead its offering, while Morgan Stanley (MS) led Facebook’s IPO. The company also sought to avoid hype by filing for an IPO secretly with the Securities and Exchange Commission and earlier setting a price range for its shares at a discount to competitors. 
 
 Twitter’s stock gain may erase some of the aftertaste of the Facebook, Zynga Inc. (ZNGA) and Groupon Inc. (GRPN) IPOs, each of which lost half their value within six months of their debuts, sending a chill over consumer-technology IPOs and some Silicon Valley startup valuations. 
 
 Twitter’s Journey 
 
 Demand for Twitter’s stock exceeded the supply even before bankers started formally asking for orders, people familiar with the matter have said. On Monday, Twitter raised the proposed price range for the 70 million shares sold in the IPO to $23 to $25 each, up from the earlier range of $17 to $20. 
 
 “People are really looking all the way out to their 2015 and 2016 revenue estimates to price this,” said Larry Levine, a partner in financial-advisory firm McGladrey LLP in Chicago. “The risk to buying Twitter is if Twitter does not achieve its very lofty growth estimates.” 
 
 Twitter will have 544.7 million shares of common stock outstanding after the IPO, its filings show. Including restricted stock and options, Twitter will have about 694.8 million shares outstanding. The sale didn’t include an extra 10.5 million shares that underwriters have an option to buy, according to the company’s prospectus. 
 
 Right Time 
 
 The offering caps a journey for Twitter from a niche short-messaging service to a global social-media platform for celebrities, politicians and others. Started in 2006 as a project at failed startup Odeo, the website now logs more than 500 million tweets each day, the company has said. That’s up from 2 million a day in January 2009. 
 
 “I have e-mails going back to 2009 asking me about when Twitter is going public,” said Bijan Sabet, a general partner at Spark Capital, which owns about 6 percent of Twitter’s shares, worth $1.46 billion. “And before that, e-mails asking when Twitter is going to generate revenue. This company has always had a lot of pressure. They took their time in figuring out the best way to go public and the right time to go public.” 
 
 Twitter still needs to deliver on its business model. Twitter’s loss widened to $64.6 million in the September quarter from $21.6 million a year earlier, and it is unlikely to be profitable until 2015, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. LinkedIn and Facebook were both profitable at the time of their IPOs. 
 
 Mobile Users 
 
 While Twitter’s revenue has surged, reaching $534.5 million in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, user growth is slowing, filings show. The service had 231.7 million monthly users in the quarter that ended in September, up 39 percent from a year earlier. That compares with 65 percent growth in the prior year. 
 
 Twitter has been touting its engagement with mobile users, where other Web companies have struggled. About three-fourths of Twitter’s active users accessed the service from mobile devices in the three months ended in September, compared with 69 percent in the year-earlier period, according to the filing. More than 70 percent of advertising revenue comes from those devices, a higher proportion than Facebook. 
 
 The money from the public offering will help Twitter build its business outside the U.S., where it got 77 percent of users yet only 26 percent of revenue in the third quarter. The company will also expand its infrastructure and work on products that will help it attract more users and advertisers. 
 
 “All that points to a lot of upside,” said Paul Zwillenberg, a London-based partner and managing director at the Boston Consulting Group. 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: Sarah Frier in New York at sfrier1@bloomberg.net; Lee Spears in New York at lspears3@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pui-Wing Tam at ptam13@bloomberg.net; Jeffrey McCracken at jmccracken3@bloomberg.net
– Too good to be true? A company with just one employee, no assets, and no revenue saw its penny stocks rocket to a $6 billion valuation this summer—enough for the SEC to shut down its trading and launch an investigation, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company, Cynk, runs a website called Introbiz.com designed to help connect people with celebrities and various kinds of professionals. Fair enough—until its stock leaped by 25,000% since June, notes Business Insider. Worse, the company address in Belize City, Belize, is inaccurate (Cynk apologized) and the company's shares have swapped hands three times over six years, always between people who were the CEO and sole employee. More details: Business Insider found someone matching CEO Javier Romero on Facebook and called him up. He answered to Javier until the reporter identified herself, when he said he was really Jason. Javier is "actually out right now," he said. "I don't really want to disclose his business. I can definitely get a number for you guys." Stock manipulation in the penny market is "extremely common" and hard to regulate, an expert tells Bloomberg. Another says that "one percent" of investors would trade in a company like Cynk—but stock promoters hardly helped, raving on Twitter that the stock "keeps surging higher!!" and "this could be EPIC!!" The SEC probe is part of its recent crackdown on penny-stock fraud. Over the past two years, the commission has halted trading in over 1,300 companies. The blog Zero Hodge drew attention to the stock this week, quipping, "Lord Overstone said it best. 'No warning can save people determined to grow suddenly rich.'"