Almost all stock spam consists of pump-and-dump spam, where the seller tries to 'talk up' the price of a stock. Spam spreading negative information about a stock in the hope of making the price fall — a practice known as short-and-distort is very rare. Similarly, most stock spam relates to smallcap or penny stocks, which trade at low prices, allowing spammers to make quick profits by buying large quantities inexpensively. Stocks listed on the major exchanges, which are less susceptible to manipulation, are rarely seen.

That makes the recent spams targeting Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (POT) quite unusual. For a start, the stock is currently listed on NYSE and is trading north of $200, a far cry from the stock spammers' usual hunting ground. Second, the spams are very clearly of the short-and-distort variety, with subject lines like ‘Workers started legal action against Potash Corp’ and ‘You must know - Potash Corp Lies!’. The bodies of the message trumpet “... Latest bad news on Potash Corp ...” and claim “Analysts recommend: SELL”. The English of the longer messages is ungrammatical enough to suggest that the author may not be a native English speaker.

At the end of the day, stock spam is just stock spam. Still, it's interesting to see such a marked departure from the typical patterns.