Letter to Asensio.com Readers Claiming Manuel Asensio No Longer Affiliated with Website
 
Welcome to asensio.com

April 27, 2004
Dear Registered Users:

Welcome to the fourth edition of the asensio.com Internet home page. In July 1996 asensio.com became the first private Internet site devoted to investor advocacy and critical commentary on publicly traded securities. It was our good fortune that asensio.com’s first two published short sales, Diana and Solv-Ex, have become Wall Street legends and have been cited in academic finance papers. The site has evolved. This latest edition opens the site for the publication of articles, company reports and historical accounts of interesting and educational short selling accounts from outside sources.

Asensio & Company, Inc.’s 8 year public record, which is the finest fully auditable recommendation record ever compiled by a Wall Street firm, remains our mainstay. Asensio & Company, Inc.’s record is composed of not just verifiable price forecasts but also fully disclosed reasoning and event outcome predictions. Our site is not affiliated with the former Asensio & Company, Inc. or its leader. We are different. First, we are not members of any exchange or securities organizations. Second, we do not trade for our own account or managed investment funds. However, we are the owners of Asensio & Company, Inc.’s archives and are its investment philosophy disciples. New short-selling campaigns initiated here at asensio.com will be added to the record under a separate category. Other categories for historical work we published will also be added to the site for instructional purposes.

asensio.com’s new structure provides it with the necessary legal protections to work with freedom and independence. It provides our reports with protection against conflicted non-governmental securities industry organizations whose interest are counter to those we advocate. It provides the public with more information about our history and offers features that we hope will be helpful in advocating investors’ interests to government.  
 
Asensio & Company is an investor advocate and is qualified to comment on government matters effecting securities markets. We believe that current short selling regulations restrict the free flow of information and capital, and that these restrictions wrongfully harm our markets and our business. However, political commentary is not our business. This site is entirely about using fairness and sound principles to successful investing. It is about earning profits from no-nonsense hard research and firm adherence to traditional investment values. We use it to distribute and promote our investment opinions about the individual stocks and bonds.

We specialize in conducting in-depth, fundamental equity research. We focus our research on securities that trade at controversial prices. In order for us to comment on a security there must exist a wide variance between our independently calculated fair value and the securities' market price. During the five-year period between 1996 and 2000 this predominantly led us to short selling. We earned a place among Wall Street's most successful investors as short sellers in a raging bull market.

As mentioned earlier, Asensio & Company established its Internet presence on October 15, 1996 as a way of distributing its research report on The Diana Corporation to hundreds of interested parties, most of who were not known to us. The Internet allowed us to meet the demand for this report in an incredibly efficient manner. In May 1996 when we issued our initial Diana short sell recommendation its stock was trading on the NYSE at over $100 per share. In April 1997 Diana's stock traded in the pink sheet below $2 per share. In December 2000 Diana filed for bankruptcy protection. We maintained our short recommendation throughout this entire period. This is only one of over 48 extraordinary successful research projects that are chronicled here. They are the historical basis of our outstanding reputation.

Contrarian opinions are needed for productive debate. We believe our new structure successfully protects the integrity and freedom of our site. Its has evolved in response to political, economic, social and cultural forces that allow unfettered securities promotion and hamper those who oppose such practices. Until June 6, 2002 asensio.com was owned and operated by Asensio & Company, Inc. which was then registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a broker-dealer and was a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. Effective June 6, 2002 Asensio & Company, Inc., the investment banking firm, relinquished all rights to its name and investor advocacy archives to asensio.com. On October 31, 2003 Asensio & Company, Inc. ceased all investment and securities related activities. Effective that date a new Asensio & Company, Inc. assumed the control and operation of asensio.com dedicated exclusively to the publication of investor reports and investor advocacy.

We hope you become a regular user of asensio.com. Historically our research work has consistently yielded extraordinary positive investment results. Markets constantly challenge all methodologies. The only real key to successful investing is to do only those things that you believe to be completely correct. Accept no explanations for faults, and be a firm judge of ultimate facts. There is a great deal investors can learn from the interesting and exciting investment situations chronicled in the research reports archived here. We are dedicated to our work methods. It is the basis for the firm convictions and bold positions that probably brought you to asensio.com. Thank you for coming to the asensio.com web site.

Sincerely,

Asensio & Company, Inc.,

Karen Gibson
Editor

Reprinted from a public message board.