HopTo, Inc. (OTCBB:HPTO) Brought to the Foreground

HopTo, Inc. (OTCBB:HPTO) is a ticker that has good and bad days in volumes, but it finally lined up among the most actively traded, and its price has been climbing in the past months, despite the corrections. Still, the graph remains choppy and not without twists and turns, so HPTO requires a closer look, unless you are ready to accept losses.

And what is more curious, HPTO is rising without an emailed promotion. The business, however, is smack in the middle of a novel trend, offering productivity solutions for mobile devices. So, like other technological offers, this ticker is enjoying some extra attention.

The latest PR from the company states that HPTO has chosen Genesis Select to run its investor relations campaign. Hopefully, the experience of Genesis could increase the stock exposure of HPTO. But in the era of a new tech boom, HPTO brings recollections of the earlier dot-com boom and bust. So let’s look at the company’s financials, to see if the investment hype is at least somehow justified:

• $4.76 million cash

• $3.8 million total current liabilities

• $1.3 million quarterly revenue

• $3.3 million net income, from 900K net loss for same quarter of 2012

It seems like HPTO and its optimization offerings are indeed accepted and generating earnings in the past year. Still, the stock is not without corrections, and is for now a bit far from the peak at 80 cents, standing at 55 cents. On Thursday, HPTO added more than 12% to stand at 56 cents, on volumes above $403,000.

We know that HPTO is capable of corrections up to 50%, which can be quite painful. At 56 cents, the ticker could go in either direction, especially if taken up by a pumper. With a market cap of around 54 million, HPTO is priced quite beyond its asset levels. The company has 98 million shares outstanding, and less than a million shares are traded each day.

Other promising OTCBB tickers have moved well, but stalled and corrected when too many investors found out and joined the hype. A ticker we are following is Soligenix, Inc. (OTCBB:SNGX), a pharmaceutical company that recently won two large government contracts for research, development and final release of a radiation sickness therapy. SNGX reached $2.30, but has been drawing back on Thursday and opened down on Friday.

Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCBB:ELTP) was another strong climber that is correcting right now, on low volume selling. ELTP slid down from 16 cents toward 11 cents, opening down on Friday as well. ELTP holds longer-term promise, but its climb in September turned out to be too steep.

If you believe HPTO will survive at its peak price, it is still best to do research on your own, and allow for a correction at least as big as the 50% that HPTO lost this summer.