WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday suspended trading in SpectraScience Inc., an inactive Minnesota corporation, amid questions surrounding online promotion of the company’s securities and recent trading activity, the regulator said.
Since late January, some social media accounts “may be engaged in a coordinated attempt to artificially influence” SpectraScience’s share price, the SEC said in a statement.
During that time period, prices and trading volume rose even though there was no publicly available news from the company, it said.
(Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)