The pharmaceutical development field is strewn with the wreckage of failed, though once promising, medicines. In fact, it’s far more the case that a drug company will spend hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in research and development in the hopes of bringing a new drug to market only to see it founder on rough shoals, going to the bottom never to be seen again. Truly, the pharmaceutical industry can be one tough ship to pilot when it comes to creating revenue.

VistaGen on the verge of possible lucrative biotechnology breakthroughs.

However, a company currently exists that’s using the latest in biotechnology developments to create a set of stem cell technologies that may actually be able to rescue many such failed drugs as well as to engage in a wide range of cell therapies, or regenerative medicine protocols. In the first instance, VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (VSTA on the OTC markets) looks to be moving aggressively to expand patents on key portions of its suite of stem cell technologies that support what it calls its “drug rescue program.” In other words, the company (as noted in this report) appears to be on the verge of a breakthrough in drug rescue and wants to ensure its rights.

As far as the second facet of VSTA’s effort (regenerative medicine), this report notes that the company has made advances in both pancreatic cancer treatment using stem cell technology as well as regenerative medicine therapies in general. Things, indeed, look very promising for this biotech firm. Of late, the company’s also begun to gain notice from those whose job it is to seek out up-and-comers in the biotech world, with VSTA scoring a blurb in the September 15, 2011 edition of BioWorld Today, a newspaper exclusively focused on this very lucrative market sector.

In looking at the company from an investment point of view, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that, given its relatively high price per share (it closed the September 29, 2011 trading session at 2.59), VSTA is something akin to a traditional blue chip stock, even. Certainly, its price is reflective of the high esteem that many hold biotech firms – and the rich promise of veritable medical miracles they can bring – in. Additionally, a company that might be able to take a once-failed medicine, rehabilitate it and make it effective (all while owning certain rights to that medicine), earning millions and billions once said medicines make it to the market, could be worth much to shareholders, other investors and even various global drug manufacturers.

To top it off, if VSTA is able to create a progression of serious advances in pancreatic cancer treatment, which is just one among several areas of regenerative medicine the company is involved in, then the sky would be the limit in terms of share price for this bold and innovative biotech player. In the opinion of a number of industry players, VistaGen seems close to making just such an event become a reality, and sooner rather than later. For OTC players, that may also mean that the firm’s 2.59 share price could easily push past 3 or more upon announcement of most any biotech advance on the part of VSTA.

Certainly, the stock’s price has been flexible enough on the low end, with a 52-week trading range of 1.75 to 2.60. Given its almost-blue chip-like status when it comes to “penny stock” trading, it shouldn’t be surprising that its stock trades lightly on a daily basis, at an average volume of 571. There are only about 15.24 million shares of stock outstanding, with a float of around 10.14 million shares on a total authorized share count of 400 million. That the company’s operated so successfully without much in the way of dilution of shares, if any, speaks volumes about its actual strength.

Conglomerates and media empires are quite impressive beasts in the business world. They stride across the financial and stock markets much like the Jolly Green Giant strides across verdant fields of green (green being the color of money here in the United States). And despite the best efforts of filmmakers and much of popular culture to depict conglomerates or media empires (think “Citizen Kane,” for starters) as some sort of bad actor running roughshod over the so-called “little guy,” most investors tend to find their best days after hooking up with a stock issued by such entities. And that’s where eMax Holdings, Inc. (EMXC) comes in.

eMax Holdings, Inc. hopes to greatly optimize its market potential.

EMXC, which trades on the over-the-counter (OTC) “pinksheet” markets, is an especially diversified holding company (basically, holding companies are companies or firms themselves, and they own other companies and their stock. At present, eMax Holdings, Inc. works through two corporations, New Unified Corp. and eMax Media, Inc. The types of companies that EMXC owns stock in includes high-end technologies, real estate, energy, international trade, commodities and finance (no doubt through New Unified Corp.) as well as multimedia, entertainment, communication and broadcasting, through eMax Media, Inc. It’s worth noting that EMXC acquires and grows only family or “morally valued” holdings.

The company seems to be in good hands, helmed as it is by Roxanna Weber, Chairman of the Board and CEO (Weber and her late husband, Chuck, co-founded the company). Weber has an extensive background corporate management, finance, real estate acquisitions and the music industry. Serving alongside Weber is Vice President and Director, Dorliss Bright. Bright has more than three decades of experience in marketing, advertising, TV, print and the interactive media business. Business development activities at eMax are under the care of Karen Schoen, who serves formally as the company’s VP of Business Development.

As far as active trading of its stock, EMXC is a vigorous daily player, with more than 9.5 million shares traded just today (September 26th). That figure, as impressive as it is, is actually sometime light, as the company averages a daily volume of nearly 23 millions shares. EMXC’s been a consistent sub-penny security, too, over the last 52 weeks, with its stock moving at between 0.0002 and 0.0035 per share. Currently, the company enjoys a market cap of more than $2.5 million.

When it comes to the EMXC share structure, there’s certainly plenty of stock to deal in, as the outstanding share balance currently punches in at 2.29 billion. The company’s stock also tends to make for a good day trading opportunity. As an example, intraday trading on September 26th saw a spread of 0.0015 to 0.0017, with an open at 0.0015 and a close at 0.0016. Shares traded consistently throughout the day, with the final transaction being stamped in at about 3:30 pm.

Lastly, the company recently made news with the inking of a loan in the amount of $50 million as well as a shared credit facility of another $50 million, meaning the company will be looking to expand and acquire ever more properties and on an increasingly aggressive basis, which is what conglomerates and media empires are supposed to do in order to create shareholder value, in other words. It’s good to see that eMax Holdings, Inc. seems to be running plays from that particular potentially lucrative playbook.

There are probably few people, at least in the United States and in much of the West, who haven’t seen one or both of the two “Men in Black” movies starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones (a third movie is currently in post production and scheduled for a May, 2012 release). How many people, though, are aware that the creator of the popular comic book that gave the movie franchise its name left his comfortable sinecure as founder and head of the comic book production company that brought forth the MiB comics? And that he founded Platinum Studios, Inc. in 1997 after the first MiB film became a smash hit that same year?

Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, perhaps sensing an even greater opportunity to bring his vision of comic-books-as-movies-and-television-fare to the masses, certainly took a great leap of faith that year and, so far, it seems to be paying off. At present, a number of comic books and graphic novels created and owned by Rosenberg and Platinum Studios are either being developed for film or TV treatments or have already made it onto the silver screen. Count the 2011 release “Cowboys and Aliens” – starring Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, the current James Bond – as one of the most notable of them. It may be that this independent graphic novel, comic book and film production company is primed for a golden run, in fact.

One reason why PDOS may be looking at a potentially golden (or “platinum”) future is that it owns an extremely large library of comics and graphic novel content, ready to be mined by a film industry desperate for relevancy among Millennials (AKA “Generation Y,” “Generation Next,” or those generally born since about 1985 through the mid-1990s). With rights to over 5000 specific (and popular) comic book characters, PDOS is ideally situated to capitalize on its intellectual property in working with (but not for) Hollywood to adapt those characters for film, television and an array of Web-based media spanning a huge spectrum of demographics. The possibility of significant revenue streams, then, is quite strong.

Platinum Studios itself currently trades as an OTCBB stock and it’s quite often a very vigorously traded security. For example, its average daily trading volume currently stands at 4.39 million shares, and it’s often the recipient of 10 to 15 million share trade days. The quality of the stock and its ability to be traded so well is illustrated by its healthy market cap, which stands at $3.15 million. Additionally, PDOS benefits from a relatively low (for an OTC security) authorized share ratio of only 500 million, with 380 million shares outstanding and a float of just about 176 million.

Does PDOS have a golden future? Possibly.

Given that the share structure for PDOS is so rational for an OTC security, it’s perhaps a bit surprising that it trades in the sub-penny range currently, but that only makes the opportunity to trade in the stock that much more appealing if you’re looking to make day trading a pastime or even an avocation. Today, the 23rd of September, shares of PDOS are currently trading at 0.0083, with a bid price offer of 0.0076 and an asking price of 0.0082. It closed the September 22^nd trading day at 0.0083, and there’s a daily potential profit margin, if trades are timed properly, of from 10 to 25 percent, many experts would say.

In all, Platinum Studios, Inc. (PDOS) could be just the sort of entertainment industry security that can be explored and then mined for a plethora of riches when it’s traded in the hands of a smart and savvy investor.

Pegasus Tel, Inc. (PTEL) Working to Weave an Ever Larger World Wide Web

Sir Walter Scott, the 19th century Scottish author and novelist, once observed that people were highly skilled at the weaving of tangled webs. And though Scott obviously didn’t have the Internet and the World Wide Web in mind when he developed his metaphor on the human condition, it’s safe to say that the contemporary Web most of us have eagerly welcomed into our lives can also be as tangled as the ones we create in our own lives. One could easily spend the rest of his life, in fact, in just crawling the Web to no real purpose or outcome.

Sure, there’s lots of “stuff” out there on the Internet, but how do we find it all and what do we do with it when we’re successful at locating it? Truly, the Web presents us with a daunting task in sorting it out. A specific company, Pegasus Tel, Inc. (PTEL), has arisen to help elevate the public’s awareness of  certain social media, online streaming media platforms and an array of video technologies. Think of what the company does as providing not only a road map to premier sites such as its own MusicMatrix.com but also what to do with such sites once you arrive.

Really, though:  How helpful can a company like PTEL be when it comes to “getting the word” out about this-or-that new social media website and also the marketing and even downstream sale of said website if it grows according to the PTEL game plan for it? Well, consider that a new website comes online every five seconds and that another one blinks out of existence – either from neglect, boredom, poor management and planning or a combination of many negative conditions – just as quickly and it’s easy to see how what PTEL does in the way of sales and marketing for Web-based media platforms alone would be vital in the new digital millennium in which we find ourselves living. 

Take the company’s MusicMatrix.com website, for example. PTEL’s work with it has produced a site that allows for an online destination where “artists, directors, producers, video editors and music fans worldwide” can “upload, direct, edit and showcase unique video content with groundbreaking, user-friendly video editing technology.” More and more these days, we are the captains of our own online entertainment ship, it seems, and with millions of users joining the self-generated online entertainment environment companies with the ability to harness the vast amounts of energy that such users are bringing to the Web will command a premium for their services. Pegasus Tel, Inc. looks to be well-positioned to capitalize on this demand.

Based out of Syracuse, New York, Pegasus Tel, Inc. is guided by CEO and President Tony DiBiase. Currently trading on the OTC markets at a low, low 0.0002, the company’s issued common stock had an extremely active day this last Tuesday, September 20th, racking up over 196 million shares traded. It also moved within a tight range that day as well, staying at between .0001 and .0003 per share. The 52-week range for PTEL stock has been extremely wide, at .0001 to 2.00 per share. The average trading volume is nothing to sneeze at, either, with PTEL stock moving at about 7.07 million shares on a daily basis.

Aquasil International, Inc. (AQUS) Seeks to Bottle Success

It’s no secret that humans are an amazingly hardy species. In fact, a well-proportioned and healthy human can go at least 4 to 6 weeks without food. Water, however, is another story. For humans, surviving more than a week without it would be a miracle and most people don’t last more than 72 to 96 hours if deprived of good old H2O . It can safely be said, then, that “water is life,” and Aquasil International, Inc. (AQUS), a bottler of pure mineral silver water for drinking, believes so thoroughly in that axiom that it’s listed prominently on the company’s website.

People the world over, and especially in many parts of Europe and a number of the old Soviet Republic satellite nations, including Tadzhikistan (the common English spelling for this country that sits nestled between China and Uzbekistan is “Tajikistan”), know of the beneficial effects of natural mineral water free of additives and pollutants. Fresh, clean water of this sort is often a staple on a vast number of dinner tables, with many households eschewing any other sort of water for consumption.

It’s no coincidence, then, that AQUS produces the natural silver-imbued mineral water bearing the company’s name (“Aquasil”) at a state-of-the-art plant in a remote section of land in Tadzhikistan, far away from any potential sources of pollution. The company brings the water up from a network of underground springs, where a natural silver content is a feature. It should be noted that stocks of fresh water are increasingly becoming a more precious commodity with each passing year. In this regard, Aquasil seems well positioned to capitalize on such a situation.

As to the benefits of the particular water that the company markets, mineral silver, such as what’s found in the company’s Aquasil brand of mineral water, is a natural antibacterial. Given that, it’s easy to see how potentially beneficial to humans drinking such water can be. Additionally, the water also contains of number of other important microelements and mineral substances, all important to human functioning. Certainly, there’s little debate that people can do with more in the way of natural health products and less in the way of pre-packaged, preservative-laden food and drink. The markets seem to agree, as billions of dollars are spent every year on healthy foods and beverages in just the United States alone.

Aquasil International, Inc., as a company, is a relative newcomer to the OTC world, being incorporated only in 2006. It also had only $835 cash on hand at the end of 2010. Since then, though, AQUS has come on nicely and has been trading very actively. It’s traded so well, and done such a good job of increasing its name recognition, that it’s now sitting on a market cap of $2.54 million, a market value of nearly $15 million and an average daily trading volume of 1.12 million shares. As an example, more than 9 million shares of the company’s stock were traded last Friday, September 16, 2011.

Perhaps the most attractive aspect when it comes to AQUS at this time – aside from the obvious attractiveness of its natural mineral silver water – is that it’s also a fairly inexpensive stock to obtain, trading at the sub-penny level. Again, this last Friday (the 16^th), the company’s stock ranged between 0.0033 and 0.0059, recovering strongly on a mid-day low of less than 0.0035 to finish at .0056. For those traders out there willing to work with the stock in a conscientious manner, the benefits of doing so should be obvious.

Though AQUS has an unlimited authorized shares limit, there are only 149,498,349 outstanding shares as of this last August 10, 2011. It’s just possible that Aquasil International, Inc. has found a way to catch lighting (or rather, mineral silver water) in a very attractive bottle.

Smoky Market Foods (SMKY) Aims to Serve Up a Tasty Investor Dish

It’s no secret these days that more people than ever before are looking for foods that combine great taste, high quality and a natural or healthful character. Generally, though, finding foods that combine robust and memorable taste with natural or healthy characteristics is like trying to find gourmet chocolate cheesecake being served at a dieters convention. If Smoky Market Foods, Inc. (SMKY) gets its way, though, great tasting food of high quality and even a bit of natural or healthful character will soon be the rule and not the exception.

Smoky Market Foods itself is the product of years of work on the part of the company’s CEO, Eddie Feintech, a former barbeque restaurant enterprise entrepreneur. Over his decades of work in the barbeque restaurant industry, Feintech had noticed a growing desire on the part of consumers for foods that sacrificed nothing in terms of taste while also being relatively affordable and at least not terribly bad for you from a health standpoint in the case of certain types of food such as fish, meats and other products.

Eventually, Feintech determined that smoking different types of meat, fish and even beans (with meat and fish able to be produced in both gourmet and non-gourmet menu offerings) provided the solution to the issue of great taste, high quality and natural or healthful food production. Traditional smoked foods techniques, however, tend to be both labor and capital intensive, which doesn’t lend itself well to cost-conscious food service delivery, unfortunately.

Happily for all, Feintech’s R&D work on smoke oven technologies eventually paid off, with the SMKY CEO creating wood-burning oven technologies capable of producing high-quality, great-tasting foods, and in mass quantities to boot. Even better, Feintech’s technologies have gained the approval of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which closely watches smoked foods, both for food safety as well as the safety of the ovens themselves. With such approval in hand, SMKY intends to mass produce a complete line of smoked meats of all types along with a gourmet menu of non-smoked dishes such as soups, casseroles and even quiches.

What’s best of all, for both consumers and investors in the company, is that SMKY’s proprietary smoking techniques allow the company to mass-produce foods of extremely high quality and taste while keeping production costs below those of other companies producing such foods using more traditional smoking processes. The company’s hard work in these areas has attracted enough success to this point to push this OTC stock to a September 13, 2011 closing share price of $0.40.

That share price, though, may also push higher now that the company has signed an advertising agreement with Weight Watchers International, Inc. in which SMKY will introduce its unique Smoke-Baked Salmon line to Weight Watchers members in both Canada and the U.S. Ad campaigns are due to kick off in late September in the United States and in October in Canada. Certainly, SMKY has the financial wherewithal to make something of the ad campaign, given its nearly $34 million market cap.

At present, the average daily share trading volume for SMKY stands at almost 71,000, which also may increase now that the tie-in with Weight Watchers has been announced. As of mid-August, 2011, Smoky Market Foods has an authorized 200 million shares, with 103.6 million shares outstanding and a low float of 13.4 million. Its effective float, though, is actually lower than that at 5.6 million, given that the company’s original seed investors hold 7.8 million shares, which makes the company a potentially tasty dish to be served up hot and ready for a legion of OTC investors.

Crowne Ventures, Inc. (CRWV) Looking at a (Possibly) Golden Future

On Thursday, September 8, 2001, U.S. President Barack Obama gave his much-anticipated jobs speech to a joint session of Congress. To say that the markets were unimpressed is an understatement. Friday the 9th’s trading day was generally a bummer, with the Dow losing 300 points. Fortunately, gold, that good old standby, remained relatively steady and continued to outperform its stocks and bonds cousins, posting a September 9^th spot price of about $1,845 per ounce.

With gold shares suffering much less greatly than other securities from the prevailing global economic uncertainty running through the broader markets many smart investors are choosing to enhance their portfolios with this precious (and increasingly more liquid) metal. This makes a gold mining and exploration company like Crowne Ventures, Inc. (CRWV) an increasingly good bet when it comes to getting in on the movement toward gold as a supplement to, or even replacement for, various fiat money systems like the US dollar and the euro.

For those, however, intimidated by the thought of buying, holding, storing and trading in actual gold – but who still want to reap what can sometimes turn out to be a significant yield from an association with the metal (such as a company that explores for it and then mines it) – CRWV could make for a good substitute for the metal itself. According to several top market analysts, including Giles Keating, head of research for Credit Suisse Group, gold is still projected to do well throughout the remainder of this year and into the next.

Given the movement of gold shares in 2011 (the metal was trading for $1,500 last April and it’s improved by nearly $350 per ounce in the interim) the promise of a rich reward, not only for investors in the actual product but for those companies mining it, is certainly there. And for companies with the skill and expertise to produce gold, the sky could be the limit in 2012. From available research, CRWV appears to be a possible success story in the making.

Currently moving in a big way into the Tecuala mining area in Nayarit, Mexico, CRWV is engaging in a number of positive relationships with claim holders of gold, silver and rare earth deposits in that region of West Central Mexico, which is about 40 miles from the Pacific Ocean, situated roughly between Mazatlan to the north and Puerto Vallarta to the south, two coastal resort areas of uncommon beauty. Nayarit state itself has a significant mining industry and is rich in deposits of lead, copper, silver, gold and other minerals.

At present, CRWV trades as an over-the-counter (OTC) Pink stock, with an August 22, 2011, share structure of 400 million outstanding shares, a float only half that (at 200 million) and a total of 500 million shares authorized. CRWV also boasts a healthy $11.20 million market cap. It also trades briskly on the OTC Pink market, with a Friday, September 9, 2011, trading volume of 24 million shares and a closing price of 0.02, with the day’s range being 0.0185 to 0.0289. The average daily trading volume is 9.16 million shares.

Additionally, as of September 9^th, 2011, CRWV’s 52-week share price range was 0.0185 to 0.51, showing there’s plenty of trading opportunity in this mining and exploration company. Given where gold is likely to go in the face of continuing market uncertainties, and the rich mining opportunities presenting themselves in Nayarit, Mexico, Crowne Ventures, Inc. could be just the security for those looking for a potentially lucrative mining and exploration stock.