More stock splits at Hacketts

UPDATE: I received an e-mail from Tom Scozzafava, explaining the reverse split this way:

The reason I did this was because stocks under one penny are disadvantaged in the marketplace for a number of reasons. For whatever reason, “one penny” is the low water mark, if you will. That’s it.

Scozzafava also objected to my use of the word “lure” in the first sentence. He has a good point, so I’ve changed it to “attract more investors”. – DS

Tom Scozzafava is trying to attract more investors to invest in Hacketts retail stores by artificially raising the stock price. He executed a 1 to 50 reverse split on Hacketts’ stock (HCKE on “pink sheets” trading). That means if you owned 50 shares of HCKE stock, now you own one. The value is the same; the move just raises the price of the stock to draw new investors’ attention. Now called HCKI (you change the ticker symbol when you do a reverse split), Hacketts is trading at one penny. That’s a fortune compared to its parent company, Seaway Valley Capital Corporation, which is trading at one-hundredth of a penny.

Scozzafava did this with Seaway Valley at least twice (once a 1:5 split, then a 1:1000 split). A reverse split is widely seen as a warning sign to savvy investors. But hey, there have been tons of warning signs, and people have still put their money into Seaway Valley.