With mergers and acquisitions still the rage, it’s hardly unusual that the market is currently being bombarded by a bevy of bogus deal rumors, some of which are undoubtedly being spread by traders anxious to make a fast buck by encouraging buying of stocks they own.

I checked out a number of the latest ones on the whisper circuit that struck some sources as probably baseless, and for the most part, I got emphatic denials both on and off the record. The apparent phonies involved:

* Acquisition of Charles Schwab by Bank of America, which once owned Schwab.

* Renewed talk of a takeover of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts by Starbucks.

* A buyout of Harley-Davidson by a supposedly unidentified foreign suitor.

* A takeover of Boston Scientific by a top pharmaceutical company.

* A new bid for World Poker Tour Enterprises (the first one, for $700 million, widely believed to have been fictitious, was made last month by an investment group led by poker legend Doyle Brunson). That bid – which came and suddenly disappeared – is also understood to be the target of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

* A buyout of Brink’s Company by an unnamed financial services company.

The clear message: Be wary of phony deal rumors, a number of which are almost certainly being fed to the press. Meanwhile, don’t look for any letup in the M&A fireworks; it looks like July 4 is here to stay for a while. That, in effect, is how Regina Pitaro, an active player in the M&A investment game since the mid-1980s, views the ongoing surge in deals, which is buoying the stock market and making a lot of investors oodles of money.

The burgeoning numbers tell the story, what with $592 billion of M&A deals recorded in the first half of the year, up a brisk 40% from $422 billion a year earlier. July showed no slowdown, with additional transactions lifting M&A deals so far this year to more than $634 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Ms. Pitaro, a managing director of Gabelli Asset Management (assets: $29 billion) and an adviser to the $350 million Enterprise Mergers and Acquisitions Fund, replied with an emphatic “yes” when I asked if she thought the outburst in recent years of M&A transactions could be sustained. “And put that ‘yes’ in capital letters,” she said. Her rationale:

* Low interest rates, increasing corporate buying power.

* An effective way for companies to boost sales, profitability, and market share.

* A swelling number of leverage buyout funds, a growing number of which are partnering in multibillion-dollar deals.

* Corporate balance sheets are flush with cash.

Much of Ms. Pitaro’s work is as a liaison between Gabelli and Enterprise, whose portfolio is broken into two thirds announced deals and one-third potential takeover candidates. Its strategy also employs merger arbitrage (the simultaneous purchase and sale of securities involved in M&A deals that’s designed to profit from unequal prices).

Because of the obvious risks involved in playing takeovers, Ms. Pitaro emphasizes that a diversified portfolio, primarily developed through an M&A fund, is the best approach. “This is not something to try at home,” she said.

Ms. Pitaro, author of a recently published book, “Deals, Deals and More Deals,” notes that arbitrage has its boosters, among them Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet, who, she points out, once said: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to arbitrage and you feed him forever.”

So what’s the best way to make a buck from the M&A rage?

For starters, Ms. Pitaro thinks the industries with the most deal potential are utilities, health care, and communications (newspapers and TV). Among her favorite individual plays, a number of which are already involved in announced deals, are Aztar, Cablevision (which has said it wants to split into two parts), Sensient, Sequa, Topps, Titan Corporation, Neiman Marcus, and Commercial Federal.

Her parting thoughts: If M&A investing appeals to you, think long term, not about a killing in the next half-hour; use tax-free money since there’s a tendency to attract a lot of short-term gains, and your best source for advice is a firm with solid M&A expertise, not the next hot tip.

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SEC TRADING PROBES: The SEC has kicked off three more stock trading investigations, I’m told by regulatory sources. They involve CV Therapeutics, a biopharmaceuticals company specializing in the development of molecule drugs to treat chronic cardiovascular diseases, BearingPoint, a management consulting firm, and Inkline Pharmaceuticals, a drug manufacturer being bought by Salix Pharmaceuticals. The SEC, as is its policy, declined comment.