Columns · investing

All That Glitters Isn’t Goldman

If you were to hold a contest to design the most-enticing name for a company right now you couldn’t do much better than “RocketFuel Blockchain.” And if you were to pick a bank to associate with it now or really any other time than Goldman Sachs would top your list. But read the fine print before you buy shares in a company by that name written up by Goldman … a lot of people seem not to have bothered.

“Following the release on April 1 of a news release titled “Goldman Small Cap Research Publishes New Research Report on RocketFuel Blockchain, Inc.,” the penny stock surged by as much as 335% in four days. Several lines down is a notice that the research firm, which accepts payment for reports, “is not in any way affiliated with Goldman Sachs & Co.”

And the report’s subject, formerly known as B4MC Gold Mines Inc., and before that as Heavenly Hot Dogs Inc., doesn’t appear to have any revenue and maybe not even a product, based on litigation about a patent that expired. The report was written by an analyst who, while he appears not to have lit the world on fire at more-established firms, has an auspicious name: Rob Goldman.”