The only thing I found surprising " shocking really " in this wire story (aka "unknown writer") that made it to be the lead business story of the day in Canada's major newspaper " is that the Ballard CEO was quoted as saying that "You see a lot of critics whining about how it's going to take too long, and the problems are too big, but; the progress is stunning."

Rather than continue to hype this stock " some may say flog a dead horse " I suggest that this is a CEO who ought to take note of the fact that the market cap is down "97 pct since 2000. That's a loss of $17.4 billion out of $18 billion for Mom and Pop, including their pensions, and now sadly in many cases their estates.

Those were the heady days when bull shit (pardon the vulgar slang for "foolish, deceitful, or boastful language") was believed by far too many traders. Today, his words have zero credibility.

Readers know I don't follow Ballard Power; it's a small cap, and I fear that commentators like me who have started to become popular as bloggers might say things that, warranted or not, have an impact on the stock price. I write about large cap stocks as studies that support my efforts to educate and inform traders who are less experienced than I.

But after possibly insulting a reader who turned persistent on the Ballard "story", I tried to make good by responding to his request.

Now I have more educational material.

The headline story in the Toronto Star today is balanced, like many Canadian Press wire stories. The headlines leave a little to be desired, but that's something we have to accept as all newspapers have a priority-one job to do, which is to sell newspapers, and the headlines happen to be their biggest tool.

The fact that the article came out immediately after I trashed the company is not a surprise. All public companies in the spotlight pay big dollars to have tracking services tell them what others are saying about them. But, possibly, in this case, the newspaper writer took note of what I had to say about one of Canada's former business giants, and called the CEO for some comments. The CEO, seeing his stock getting trounced in the morning, probably was annoyed at his "whining critics".

That's half the story.

The 5-Minute Data charts for Ballard Power (TSX: BLD) (NDQ: BLDP), however, give you a glimpse into the seedy world of stock promotion.

You see, after getting hammered all day long Friday, the stock was closed strongly on low volume in the last 30 minutes of trading. That was just a little end-of-the-week window dressing. Still the stock ended Friday, down about 2 pct on the day. The headline article today will serve to try to bring the stock back up. Promoters will be faxing the CEO's comments to whomever they think might buy a few shares.

This is precisely the kind of trading that I believe securities regulators ought to be reviewing. Far too often, the price you see in the newspaper is not on account of fair trading, but the result of an attempt to deceive.

I thought I'd show you this because over the years I have seen it a thousand times or more. That's called experience, which is what most traders are looking for.

Now, for the Ballard Powerless story, I have no interest to follow up. I've said my piece.

Now it's up to readers to either listen to the "stunning progress" comment by the CEO or take my words that the share price is telling me something quite different.

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I will be away today for the funeral of Joseph Stefaniak, my father-in-law, who passed away after 100 years and eight days.