I read about Matthew Hill's activity as the poster Bullish in the Herald today, I couldn't believe it. I don't hold any shares at the moment, and I'm still pretty disappointed with Glass Earth Gold's humdrum efforts until they effectively folded up. At least they didn't prod the market in such a direct and illegal way.
I remember with clarity when a firm I had dealings with listed on the market. Their words were: "This is our latest effort in capital raising". They didn't say "After lots of requests from investors, we are giving the stockmarket a shot at some of our future super-profits". In fact that firm is still losing money each year, as far as I know.
I did look hard at FPH and A2 Milk years ago (amongst others) and thought they looked like sound NZ businesses, with a great story. But their shares didn't move very quickly back then, so I didn't keep the shares. Look at them now!
When I invest again, it'll be into sound-looking businesses that don't need to do so much capital raising, and I'll wait a bit longer to see if my research was correct.