Potential SEC Investigation of Dave Portnoy for Pumping Penny Stock

Philadelphia – Founder of Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy, posted to Twitter this morning indiscriminately pumping the penny stock InspireMD, Inc. (“NSPR”).

InspireMD is a $7 million market capitalization nano-cap focused on development and commercialization of a medical device for the treatment of coronary and vascular diseases.  InspireMD is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel and has 48 employees.

I expect rocket ship stock tips on all dates I go on now. #ddtg $NSPR pic.twitter.com/MmatsFbDqL

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) June 10, 2020

Nineteen minutes after the stock market opened, Dave took to Twitter to talk about his position in InspireMD.  Dave states the following (transcribed by The Stonk Market and may not be accurate):

“NSPR, up a $115, up $110 grand for me. NSPR! Whoo! Up a hundred grand, stay baby. What is NSPR and why do I have $400 grand of it? What is NSPR? Oh! Yeah! Girl I went on a date with. She is like talking stocks, studying the stock market. NSPR! What you study the stock market? She’s like yeah. I’m like you serious? Yeah I’m just quarantined and just research s$$$. NSPR. You serious. Yeah. Bang! Bought $400 grand just to impress her. Not to make money, just big dick Dave over here just dropped, that’s how you trade! It’s not always the x’s and the o’s like Warren Buffett likes to tell you. Sometimes you meet a pretty girl and you gotta impress her so you drop your nuts on the table. NSPR! NSPR. NSPR is cranking! Crank City. NSPR up 32%. That is how you trade. That is how you trade. That is how you trade. NSPR rocket ship. ROCKET SHIP! Rocket ship alert. NSPR get on it! It’s moving like a mother$$$$$r! Rocket ship! Blue dress is my new financial advisor. She is my new financial advisor. Come on!”

To state the obvious, the amount of shares traded today have surpassed the average daily traded – over 36 million (as of this writing).  Furthermore, the volume over the past six days has exponentially increased.

As Dave states in the video, he dumped $400 grand into a $7 million dollar company which equates to a 5.71% position – meaningful to the SEC, requiring a 13G.

The most pressing question has yet to be answered.  When will Dave file his 13G?  And will it be Dave Portnoy filing the 13G? Or will it be Barstool? It likely won’t be Penn National Gaming (“PENN”) as they only own 36% of Barstool and the financials are not consolidated.

Despite not knowing if and when a 13G will be filed, one thing is for certain; this kind of behavior regulators drool over.

They will 99% go after him for this. He needs to file 13G. It’s also open and shut manipulation.

Usually SEC salivates over this type of high profile case, but they sure have let Elon get away with breaking terms of settlement. There’s also $MRNA

— John Galtier (@johngaltier45) June 10, 2020

And as someone who has been around the markets a time or two, getting in a nano-cap is the easy part.  Getting out of one is nearly impossible without – especially without the entire stock tanking.