2010 Update

Bad week for us last week, down 3.3%. LTUS keeps dragging us down with another double digit decline (19%) and SuperGen dropped 10% on what we think is good news-long term.

AVSO, SUPG, EXTR, and LTUS.ob are our favorites.

The DOW was even last week, NASDAQ was down .3% and the S+P 500 was down .3%. The Russell 3000 and the Wilshire 5000 were both down about .4%.

For the year so far, we are up 3.3%. The DOW is up 6.9%, NASDAQ is up 4.8%, S+P 500 is up 5.6%, the Russell 3000 is up 6.0% and the Wilshire is up 5.8%.

Last week we went 6 stocks up, 10 down and 2 even. Since inception we are now 51 stocks up and 12 down for a 81% winning percentage (80% is our target win %).

Since our beginning, we have closed out the following positions:

2006-NTCT +44%
2006-ONXS +11% (Buyout offer)
2006-DTLK +41%
2006-CAW +21% (Buyout offer)
2007-IYXI.ob +44% (Buyout offer)
2007-MOBI +47% (Buyout offer)
2007-INFT +11% (Buyout offer)
2007-RITT +62%
2007-MIVA +55%
2007-DTLK +25% (2 weeks)
2007-PDLI + 3%
2007-QADI +25%
2007-CIMT +50%
2007-BDR +19%
2007-LINN.ob -57% (mortgage business bust didn’t help here)
2007-TISA -39% (take some tax loss for 2007 due to disappointing results.
2008-ANGN +26%
2008-OPTO.ob +40% (Buy-out offer)
2008-PDLI +9% (company split, and special dividend)
2008-BDAY -39% (long overdue takeover offer-or “take-under”)
2008-DTLK +40% (third trip on this one)
2008-ILOG +26% (Buy-out offer from IBM)
2008-PARL +56%
2009-MBRK +67%
2009-SNWL +14%
2009-CYNO +25%
2009-DTLK +33%
2009-NED +46%
2009-CUTR +13%
2009-HSTM +67% (continued good earnings)
2009-RNWK +36%
2009-OPK +116%
2009-CLZR -32% (a loser even on a buy-out)
2009-DTLK +28% (our 5th profitable trip on this one)
2010-HPOL +110%
2010-DIVX +25%
2010-CHRD +37% Buyout (2 weeks after we recommended it)
2010-HPOL +30%
2010-MGIC +82%
2010-GSL +78%
2010-CCEL +49%
2010-HPOL +27%
2010-CAW EVEN (excluding 2.5 years of dividends)
2011-DWCH +116%
2011-IPAS +15%

The model portfolio assumes $10,000 invested in each stock (unless we double-up–then it is $20,000), less $10 commission each way (TD Ameritrade rate).

For the 45 stocks that we closed out since 2006 (41 were winners) the average net gain was 33%.

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE-RST)-Recommended 3/3/2011)
Buy Price-$12.62
Valuation $31.14
Closed up $.63 at $14.05
Up 11%-BUY

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-Recommended 3/3/2010)
Buy Price-$.92
Valuation $2.97
Closed at $1.05, up $.08
Up 14%-HOLD

Concurrent Computer (NASDAQ-CCUR)-Recommended 2/4/2011)
Buy Price-$5.08
Valuation $15.99
Closed down $.04 at $6.02
Last week the ompany announed that it would not do the stock buy back that Skellig was suggesting. We don’t like buy backs anyway. Hopefully Skellig will keep pushing management to get the share price up.
Skellig Capital Management filed a 13D/A in March suggesting that CCUR use their excess cash to do a share buy back. They used examples in the filing of $6.60 and $6.90 a share. They also bought a few more shares of CCUR. Their ownership is up to 5.86%.
Up 19%-BUY

SuperGen Inc. (NASDAQ-SUPG)-Recommended 10/4/2010)
Buy Price-$2.31 (was $2.09 before adding $10,000)
Valuation $4.89 (was $4.37, $3.48)
Closed down $.33 at $2.83
SUPR announced last week that they were buying Astex, a UK company for $55 million in cash and stock. They will pay $25 million cash upfront and the remaining $30 million in cash or stock over 30 months. The deal is expected to close in July. The big, black mark on SUPG was that their drug pipeline was weak. From what we can tell, Astex is nothing but pipeline. They do not appear to have any commercial products and no close-in products, however, they have collaboration deals with a number of drug giants and have collected substantial milestone payments from them. There are $2 BILLION of potential milestone payments down the road. The combined company will have $120 million of cash, but we suspect the profitability will be gone. There is not enough public information at this point to update our valuation.
Upgraded to BUY by The Street.com recently.
Up 22%-BUY

Performance Technolgy (PTIX-Recommended 3/30/2010)
Buy Price-$2.70
Valuation $3.79-(was $3.87, $5.03, $5.98, $7.13)
Closed down $.04 at $2.09
Last earnings report in March.Sales were down 18% from last year to $6.8 million, and they lost $2.8 million after adjusting out some one-time write-offs. Cash per share fell to $1.73, and our valuation fell to $3.79 as cash, sales and margins fell. They did say that Q1 2011 sales would be up 35-45% over Q4 and exceed any quarter in 2009 or 2010. We think we will hold on to this one a bit longer and see if they can get to a profit.
Down 23% HOLD

Extreme Networks (EXTR-Recommended 3/22/2010)
Buy Price-$3.18 (Was $3.04 before adding another $10,000)
Valuation-$7.36 (was $7.23, $7.31, $6.82, $6.81)
Closed down $.02 at $3.39
CFO resigned in March. Always makes stockholders jittery, but they also got a new CEO in October last year, so it is not unusual for a CFO to go, shortly after a new CEO comes in. They hired an interim CFO in March while they look for a permanent one.
Earnings out in February. Sales up 7% to $85 million and they made $.10 per share ($.06 if you exclude a favorable litigation settlement) versus a loss last year of $.02 per share. Cash per share rose $.08 to 1.55 and our valuation rose to $7.36. Next quarter guidance was $82-$85 million in sales and earnings of $.05-$.08 per share before a $.04/$.05 write off off some assets.
EXTR entered a settlement agreement with Ramius (Ramius owns 6.4% of EXTR). Declassify the Board, add a Ramius Director and the Ramius Director must be on any committee that reviews “strategic alternatives”. Pushing to sell EXTR obviously.
Still a cheap stock.
Up 7% HOLD

Broadvision (BVSN-Recommended 3/16/2010)
Buy Price-$13.50
Valuation $22.95-(was $22.31, $21.77, $23.37, $27.15)
$13.87 per share in cash.
Closed down $.63 at $13.82.
Earnings out in January. Revenue was $5.1 million and they made $.01 per share. Cash per share fell a tad to $13.60. Our valuation inched up to $22.95.
Up 2%. HOLD

Ninetowns Internet Technology (NINE-Recommended 1/25/2010)
Buy Price-$1.53
Valuation-$3.54 (Was $3.54, $3.19)
$2.88 per share in cash
Closed at $1.50, up $.10.
NINE announced last week they are going into the real estate business in China, by buying 141,000 sq. meters of land rights for $39 million (out of their $100 million or so). They plan to develop this land for mixed use residential and commercial. Have to wait on this one, as their grocery business was not doing much, but not sure we want to be in the real estate business.
Earning out in October. Sales were $5.67 million for the first 6 months of 2010 and they lost $1 million. Cash rose to $2.88 per share and our valuation stayed at $3.54. Only doing about $10 million a year in sales, but still trading way below (50%) cash value.
Down 2%. HOLD

Gravity Company Ltd. (GRVY-Recommended 1/18/2010)
Buy Price-$1.68
Valuation $5.73-(Was $4.38, $4.44, $5.15)
Closed down $.17 at $1.82.
Earnings out in November. Not bad. Cash rose to $2.33 per share and they made $.08 per share. Our valuation jumped to $5.73. Not bad at all. New game coming out in Korea this quarter (War of Gods), although Ragnarok 2 is delayed until at least Q2 2011.
Up 8%. HOLD

AEterna Zentaris (AEZS-Recommended 6/20/2009)
Buy price $1.42 (was $1.78 before adding another $10,000, $1.82 before double up)
Valuation –Speculation.
Closed down $.08 at $1.88.
Earnings out in March. Revenues about $10 million for the quarter and $27.7 for the year. They only lost $2.7 for the quarter and lost $20.5 for the year. Cash was $33.9 million before counting about $14 million of cash received in the current quarter for royalty payments, their Japan deal and sale of stock.
AEZS announced a new partnership for perifosine in Japan. They got $8 million upfront and up to another $60 million in the future. Plus AEZS gets to sell the compound to the company and gets double digit royalties. Not a bad deal.
Riding the tail of Kerx and perifosine, new orphan drug apporval from the FDA and a lot of investor interest in their pipeline of cancer products.
Speculative for sure.
Up 32% HOLD

Spectranetics (SPNC-Recommended 9/2/2006)
Buy price $5.68 (was $8.90, $9.40 before adding $10,000,and was $10.65 before double up), Valuation –$10.00
Closed up $.06 at $4.95.
SPNC got an approval in Japan last week to sell their lead locking device (used for removal of pacemaker and defibrillator leads). They also announced the start of a study on PAD (pheripheral arterial disease). It is expected to last about 6 months.
Hmmm, CFO and 2 other officers got “change of control” agreements in March. Hope they actually mean something!
SPNC announced earnings in February. Nothing to write home about. Sales decreased 1% to $29.3 million. At least they were able to earn a profit of $.02 a share-even after their million dollar charge for EG. I think the only way we are going to make money on this one is if they are sold. Otherwise they just can’t perform and I think the stock will go nowhere.
Good news. Geisemheimer is off the Board! Now just a consultant through June.
13D filed in November 2010. Paragon Assoc. disclosed a 2 million share (6%) ownership purchased at $5.16 per share. Maybe we have a catalyst finally to push management to do something (like sell this dog).
The company has $33 million in cash ($.99 per share), no debt and is growing about 5% a year. Teetering on a SELL here. Management is just terrible.
Down 13%. HOLD.

Mediware (MEDW-Recommended 6/4/2007)
Buy Price $6.33, (was $6.52, $6.67 ($10,000 added), $6.98 after double up)
Valuation $15.04 (was $14.23, $15.02, $14.35, $12.13, $12.57, $12.29, $11.90, $11.30, $11.48, $11.47 $10.99, $10.28, $13.32, $12.89, $13.40)
Closed down $.62 at $11.78
MEDW announced another acquisition in March. No details of what it cost, or what it will do to earnings.
Constellation continues to sell a few thousand shares here and there. Interesting move. Not sure if it is meant to goad MEDW management into doing something like selling the company to Constellation or someone else. The dollars involved in this sales is peanuts. It has been 9 months since they hired their investment bankers, so it is about time for something to happen, hopefully more than the acquisition last week.
Earnings out in February. Good again. Sales up 22% to $13.2 million and they made $.21 per share versus $.10 last year. Our valuation rose to $15.04–the highest ever.
MEDW re-engaged William Blair to look at “strategic alternatives”. Got to have an I Banker to sell your company.
Constellation now owns 21.8%.
All we read is that medical records will be a hot area, so MEDW looks like the place to be.
Up 86%. HOLD

Angeion Corporation. (ANGN-Recommended 8/28/2008)
Buy Price-$3.82 (was $5.15 before $10,000 added)
Valuation $13.60 (was $15.00, $13.06, $12.15, $11.29, $11.73, $11.47, $11.16, $9.53, $13.30, $13.03)
Closed down $.13 at $4.77
Earnings out in March. Not bad we thought. Sales up 7% to $7.1 million and they cut their weak quarter loss from $.20 a share to an adjusted profit of $.02 a share (excluding a severance charge for their ex-CEO). Our valuation fell to $13.60, but again this is their seasonally weak quarter, so we are not upset about it.
Up 25% BUY

OB-abies (Bulletin Board Listed Stocks)

As proven by OPTIO, patience is necessary with these stocks, especially in this Market.

ARI Networks (ARIS.ob-Recommended 8/19/2006)
Buy price $1.61 (Was $1.78 before another $10,000 added, was $2.06 before double up),
Valuation $5.39 (was $4,86, $5.60, $5.73, $5.54, $5.74, $5.96, $4.72, $5.19, $5.66, $5.63, $5.61, $5.71, $5.49, $5.34, $5.03, $5.28, $5.28, $5.21)
Closed at $.60 up $.03.
Earnings out in March. Sales down 2% to $5.238 million, operating income was $254,000 and they made $.02 per share. Our valuation jumped back up to $5.39 on higher than expected margins.
Wake up management–you have a great little company here worth 7X what it is selling for.
Now down 63%. BUY. Still a Huge valuation gap here.

Rand Worldwide (RWWI.ob (Was Avatech, AVSO.ob)-Bought November 28, 2005)
Buy price $.79 (Was $.93, $.99 and $1.19 before adding $10,000-each time),
Valuation $2.40 (was $1.90, $2.26 $3.07, $3.03, $2.38, $2.57, $2.81, $2.78, $3.30, $3.76, $4.00 $3.41, $3.05, $2.53, $3.25, $3.29 $2.69, $3.36, $3.81)
Stock closed at $.70, unchanged.
Earnings out in February. Sales were $21.7 million and they made $.02 a share. Our valuation jumped back up to $2.40 a share. Trading at 28% of our valuation. Cheap.
RWWI announced a $5.6 million deal in January. Maybe new management will get the word out on Rand and at least get us over $1.
Down 12%. BUY.

CTI Holdings (CTIG.ob-Recommended 2/25/2006)
Buy price $.27 ask,
Valuation $1.21 (Was $.71, $.83, $.88 $.96, $.93, $.75, $.85, $1.57, $1.40, $1.29, $1.38, $1.31, $1.38, $1.29, $1.42, $1.28 $1.13, $1.05, $.82)
Ask price $.09, closed at $.08.
Earnings out in March. Sales were $4.37 million and they actually made $200,000 of net income! Our valuation spiked back up to $1.21. They also announced that they signed a contract with a customer for $6 million most of which will come in Q2. Their VOIP business did $900,000 of revenue in 2010 compared to $150,000 in 2009.
At a $3 million market cap, this is stupidly cheap. Their itellectual property is probably worth 10 times this price. They need to liquify this value somehow.
They might have to sell or shut this VOIP business down in our opinion. Just losing too much money, and eroding shareholder value–or it could be a home run.
Still an “undercover” company and stock.
Down 67%. HOLD

Lotus Pharmaceuticals (LTUS.ob-Recommended 12/3/2007)
Buy price $1.68 (Was $1.80 before $10,000 adder, $2.16 before double-up)
Valuation-$4.11 (Was $4.84, $4.98, $4.60, $3.82, $4.00, $3.68, $3.12, $3.98, $4.44, $3.22, $2.12, $4.56, $4.16)
Closed at $.85, down $.20
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of stocks. No respect whatsoever. Now trading at close to one times this years earnings! Ghost stories of ALL Chinese reverse merger companies being shams continue to spook stockholders. We don’t think LTUS is one of them.
Earnings in March. Surprize, they wrote off $6.8 million of developement cost on the Mongolian property. Wham! Q4 sales were up 22% to $20 million. They made $.78 per share for the year after adjusting out the Mongolia write-off. Our valuation dropped to $4.11 per share on a slight drop in sales, lower income and more shares outstanding. Still a huge valuation gap.
Looks like the Mongolian land story has shifted again. Now they intend to keep some of the land and build a distribution facility on it and sell the rest for $50-$80 million-or enter into a developement deal to preserve about $6 million of tax benefits they are getting. The move into the Bejing building is delayed also–till sometime near the end of the year. This delay will keep 2011 sales and earning flat to slighly down. None of this impressed investors, and with a few other Chinese reverse merger stocks imploding due to CFO and auditor resignations here we are at $1.05 per share-25% of our valuation and less than a 1.5 PE. LTUS filed their 10k last week, with no auditor resignations! That alone should pust the stock back over $2.
When the Bejing building is complete, they expect to have invested a total of $48 million ($36 million already spent) and that based on current market values, the building will be worth over $100 million. This plus the Mongolian land are worth 3 times the current market cap of LTUS. Oh yeah, then there is the $.80 in annual earnings. Think this is a buy?
The stock split 2 for 1 in December. All of our numbers have been adjusted to reflect this split.
Down 50%. BUY

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Cheap Stocks, 4/1/2011 Update

We lagged the market last week, but still posted a .7% gain despite a 31% loss in LTUS (see update below).

AVSO, SUPG, EXTR, and LTUS.ob are our favorites.

The DOW was up 1.3% last week, NASDAQ was up 1.7% and the S+P 500 was up 1.%4. The Russell 3000 and the Wilshire 5000 were both up about 1.6%.

For the year so far, we are up 6.6%. The DOW is up 6.9%, NASDAQ is up 5.2%, S+P 500 is up 6%, Russell 3000 up 6.5% and the Wilshire is up 6.2%.

Last week we went 11 stocks up, 5 down and 2 even. Since inception we are now 51 stocks up and 12 down for a 81% winning percentage (80% is our target win %).

Since our beginning, we have closed out the following positions:

The model portfolio assumes $10,000 invested in each stock (unless we double-up–then it is $20,000), less $10 commission each way (TD Ameritrade rate).

For the 45 stocks that we closed out since 2006 (41 were winners) the average net gain was 33%.

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE-RST)-Recommended 3/3/2011)
Buy Price-$12.62
Valuation $31.14
Closed up $.29 at $13.42
Up 6%-BUY

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-Recommended 3/3/2010)
Buy Price-$.92
Valuation $2.97
Closed at $.97, unchanged
Up 5%-BUY

Concurrent Computer (NASDAQ-CCUR)-Recommended 2/4/2011)
Buy Price-$5.08
Valuation $15.99
Closed down $.39 at $6.06
Skellig Capital Management filed a 13D/A in March pushing CCUR to use their excess cash to do a share buy back. They used examples in the filing of $6.60 and $6.90 a share. They also bought a few more shares of CCUR. Their ownership is up to 5.86%.
Up 19%-HOLD

SuperGen Inc. (NASDAQ-SUPG)-Recommended 10/4/2010)
Buy Price-$2.31 (was $2.09 before adding $10,000)
Valuation $4.89 (was $4.37, $3.48)
Closed up $.31 at $3.16
Upgraded to BUY by The Street.com recently.
Up 37%-HOLD

Performance Technolgy (PTIX-Recommended 3/30/2010)
Buy Price-$2.70
NEW Valuation $3.79-(was $3.87, $5.03, $5.98, $7.13)
Closed up $.12 at $2.13
Earnings out last week.
Not as bad as we expected.
Sales were down 18% from last year to $6.8 million, and they lost $2.8 million after adjusting out some one-time write-offs. Cash per share fell to $1.73, and our valuation fell to $3.79 as cash, sales and margins fell. They did say that Q1 2011 sales would be up 35-45% over Q4 and exceed any quarter in 2009 or 2010. We think we will hold on to this one a bit longer and see if they can get to a profit.
Down 21% HOLD

Extreme Networks (EXTR-Recommended 3/22/2010)
Buy Price-$3.18 (Was $3.04 before adding another $10,000)
Valuation-$7.36 (was $7.23, $7.31, $6.82, $6.81)
Closed down $.10 at $3.41
CFO resigned in March. Always makes stockholders jittery, but they also got a new CEO in October last year, so it is not unusual for a CFO to go, shortly after a new CEO comes in. They hired an interim CFO last week while they look for a permanent one.
Earnings out in February. Sales up 7% to $85 million and they made $.10 per share ($.06 if you exclude a favorable litigation settlement) versus a loss last year of $.02 per share. Cash per share rose $.08 to 1.55 and our valuation rose to $7.36. Next quarter guidance was $82-$85 million in sales and earnings of $.05-$.08 per share before a $.04/$.05 write off off some assets.
EXTR entered a settlement agreement with Ramius (Ramius owns 6.4% of EXTR). Declassify the Board, add a Ramius Director and the Ramius Director must be on any committee that reviews “strategic alternatives”. Pushing to sell EXTR obviously.
Still a cheap stock.
Up 7% HOLD

Broadvision (BVSN-Recommended 3/16/2010)
Buy Price-$13.50
Valuation $22.95-(was $22.31, $21.77, $23.37, $27.15)
$13.87 per share in cash.
Closed down $.03 at $14.45.
Earnings out in January. Revenue was $5.1 million and they made $.01 per share. Cash per share fell a tad to $13.60. Our valuation inched up to $22.95.
Up 7%. HOLD

Ninetowns Internet Technology (NINE-Recommended 1/25/2010)
Buy Price-$1.53
Valuation-$3.54 (Was $3.54, $3.19)
$2.88 per share in cash
Closed at $1.40, unchanged.
Earning out in October. Sales were $5.67 million for the first 6 months of 2010 and they lost $1 million. Cash rose to $2.88 per share and our valuation stayed at $3.54. Only doing about $10 million a year in sales, but still trading way below (50%) cash value.
Down 9%. BUY

Gravity Company Ltd. (GRVY-Recommended 1/18/2010)
Buy Price-$1.68
Valuation $5.73-(Was $4.38, $4.44, $5.15)
Closed up $.01 at $1.99.
Earnings out in November. Not bad. Cash rose to $2.33 per share and they made $.08 per share. Our valuation jumped to $5.73. Not bad at all. New game coming out in Korea this quarter (War of Gods), although Ragnarok 2 is delayed until at least Q2 2011.
Up 19%. HOLD

AEterna Zentaris (AEZS-Recommended 6/20/2009)
Buy price $1.42 (was $1.78 before adding another $10,000, $1.82 before double up)
Valuation –Speculation.
Closed up $.17 at $1.96.
Earnings out in March. Revenues about $10 million for the quarter and $27.7 for the year. They only lost $2.7 for the quarter and lost $20.5 for the year. Cash was $33.9 million before counting about $14 million of cash received in the current quarter for royalty payments, their Japan deal and sale of stock.
AEZS announced a new partnership for perifosine in Japan. They got $8 million upfront and up to another $60 million in the future. Plus AEZS gets to sell the compound to the company and gets double digit royalties. Not a bad deal.
Riding the tail of Kerx and perifosine, new orphan drug apporval from the FDA and a lot of investor interest in their pipeline of cancer products.
Speculative for sure.
Up 38% HOLD

Spectranetics (SPNC-Recommended 9/2/2006)
Buy price $5.68 (was $8.90, $9.40 before adding $10,000,and was $10.65 before double up), Valuation –$10.00
Closed up $.45 at $4.89.
Hmmm, CFO and 2 other officers got “change of control” agreements in March. Hope they actually mean something!
SPNC announced earnings in February. Nothing to write home about. Sales decreased 1% to $29.3 million. At least they were able to earn a profit of $.02 a share-even after their million dollar charge for EG. I think the only way we are going to make money on this one is if they are sold. Otherwise they just can’t perform and I think the stock will go nowhere.
Good news. Geisemheimer is off the Board! Now just a consultant through June.
13D filed in November 2010. Paragon Assoc. disclosed a 2 million share (6%) ownership purchased at $5.16 per share. Maybe we have a catalyst finally to push management to do something (like sell this dog).
The company has $33 million in cash ($.99 per share), no debt and is growing about 5% a year. Teetering on a SELL here. Management is just terrible.
Down 14%. HOLD.

Mediware (MEDW-Recommended 6/4/2007)
Buy Price $6.33, (was $6.52, $6.67 ($10,000 added), $6.98 after double up)
Valuation $15.04 (was $14.23, $15.02, $14.35, $12.13, $12.57, $12.29, $11.90, $11.30, $11.48, $11.47 $10.99, $10.28, $13.32, $12.89, $13.40)
Closed up $.32 at $12.40
MEDW announced another acquisition last week. No details of what it cost, or what it will do to earnings.
Constellation continues to sell a few thousand shares here and there. Interesting move. Not sure if it is meant to goad MEDW management into doing something like selling the company to Constellation or someone else. The dollars involved in this sales is peanuts. It has been 9 months since they hired their investment bankers, so it is about time for something to happen, hopefully more than the acquisition last week.
Earnings out in February. Good again. Sales up 22% to $13.2 million and they made $.21 per share versus $.10 last year. Our valuation rose to $15.04–the highest ever.
MEDW re-engaged William Blair to look at “strategic alternatives”. Got to have an I Banker to sell your company.
Constellation now owns 21.8%. When is the take-over offer??
All we read is that medical records will be a hot area, so MEDW looks like the place to be.
Up 96%. HOLD

Angeion Corporation. (ANGN-Recommended 8/28/2008)
Buy Price-$3.82 (was $5.15 before $10,000 added)
Valuation $13.60 (was $15.00, $13.06, $12.15, $11.29, $11.73, $11.47, $11.16, $9.53, $13.30, $13.03)
Closed up $.10 at $4.90
Earnings out in March. Not bad we thought. Sales up 7% to $7.1 million and they cut their weak quarter loss from $.20 a share to an adjusted profit of $.02 a share (excluding a severance charge for their ex-CEO). Our valuation fell to $13.60, but again this is their seasonally weak quarter, so we are not upset about it.
Up 28% BUY

OB-abies (Bulletin Board Listed Stocks)

As proven by OPTIO, patience is necessary with these stocks, especially in this Market.

ARI Networks (ARIS.ob-Recommended 8/19/2006)
Buy price $1.61 (Was $1.78 before another $10,000 added, was $2.06 before double up),
Valuation $5.39 (was $4,86, $5.60, $5.73, $5.54, $5.74, $5.96, $4.72, $5.19, $5.66, $5.63, $5.61, $5.71, $5.49, $5.34, $5.03, $5.28, $5.28, $5.21)
Closed at $.57 down $.01.
Earnings out in March. Sales down 2% to $5.238 million, operating income was $254,000 and they made $.02 per share. Our valuation jumped back up to $5.39 on higher than expected margins.
Wake up management–you have a great little company here worth 7X what it is selling for.
Now down 65%. BUY. Still a Huge valuation gap here.

Rand Worldwide (RWWI.ob (Was Avatech, AVSO.ob)-Bought November 28, 2005)
Buy price $.79 (Was $.93, $.99 and $1.19 before adding $10,000-each time),
Valuation $2.40 (was $1.90, $2.26 $3.07, $3.03, $2.38, $2.57, $2.81, $2.78, $3.30, $3.76, $4.00 $3.41, $3.05, $2.53, $3.25, $3.29 $2.69, $3.36, $3.81)
Stock closed at $.70, up $.10.
Earnings out in February. Sales were $21.7 million and they made $.02 a share. Our valuation jumped back up to $2.40 a share. Trading at 28% of our valuation. Cheap.
RWWI announced a $5.6 million deal in January. Maybe new management will get the word out on Rand and at least get us over $1.
Down 12%. BUY.

CTI Holdings (CTIG.ob-Recommended 2/25/2006)
Buy price $.27 ask,
NEW Valuation $1.21 (Was $.71, $.83, $.88 $.96, $.93, $.75, $.85, $1.57, $1.40, $1.29, $1.38, $1.31, $1.38, $1.29, $1.42, $1.28 $1.13, $1.05, $.82)
Ask price $.09, closed at $.08.
Earnings out last week. Sales were $4.37 million and they actually made $200,000 of net income! Our valuation spiked back up to $1.21. They also announced that they signed a contract with a customer for $6 million most of which will come in Q2. Their VOIP business did $900,000 of revenue in 2010 compared to $150,000 in 2009.
At a $3 million market cap, this is stupidly cheap. Their itellectual property is probably worth 10 times this price. They need to liquify this value somehow.
They might have to sell or shut this VOIP business down in our opinion. Just losing too much money, and eroding shareholder value–or it could be a home run.
Still an “undercover” company and stock.
Down 67%. HOLD

Lotus Pharmaceuticals (LTUS.ob-Recommended 12/3/2007)
Buy price $1.68 (Was $1.80 before $10,000 adder, $2.16 before double-up)
NEW Valuation-$4.11 (Was $4.84, $4.98, $4.60, $3.82, $4.00, $3.68, $3.12, $3.98, $4.44, $3.22, $2.12, $4.56, $4.16)
Closed at $1.05, down $.48
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of stocks. No respect whatsoever. Now trading at less than 2X this years earnings! Ghost stories of ALL Chinese reverse merger companies being shams continue to spook stockholders. We don’t think LTUS is one of them.
Earnings last week. Surprize, they wrote off $6.8 million of developement cost on the Mongolian property. Wham! Q4 sales were up 22% to $20 million. They made $.78 per share for the year after adjusting out the Mongolia write-off. Our valuation dropped to $4.11 per share on a slight drop in sales, lower income and more shares outstanding. Still a huge valuation gap.
Looks like the Mongolian land story has shifted again. Now they intend to keep some of the land and build a distribution facility on it and sell the rest for $50-$80 million-or enter into a developement deal to preserve about $6 million of tax benefits they are getting. The move into the Bejing building is delayed also–till sometime near the end of the year. This delay will keep 2011 sales and earning flat to slighly down. None of this impressed investors, and with a few other Chinese reverse merger stocks imploding due to CFO and auditor resignations here we are at $1.05 per share-25% of our valuation and less than a 1.5 PE. LTUS filed their 10k last week, with no auditor resignations! That alone should pust the stock back over $2.
When the Bejing building is complete, they expect to have invested a total of $48 million ($36 million already spent) and that based on current market values, the building will be worth over $100 million. This plus the Mongolian land are worth 3 times the current market cap of LTUS. Oh yeah, then there is the $.80 in annual earnings. Think this is a buy?
The stock split 2 for 1 in December. All of our numbers have been adjusted to reflect this split.
Down 38%. BUY

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Cheap Stocks, 3/25/2011 Update

Most of the averages were up 3% or so last week. We were down .1%. Our “OB’s” fell with the exception of Lotus which killed the week.

AVSO, SUPG, EXTR, and LTUS.ob are our favorites.

The DOW was up 3% last week, NASDAQ was up 3.8% and the S+P 500 was up 2.7%. The Russell 3000 and the Wilshire 5000 were both up about 2.8%.

For the year so far, we are up 5.9%. The DOW is up 5.6%, NASDAQ is up 3.4%, S+P 500 is up 4.5%, Russell 3000 up 4.7% and the Wilshire is up 4.5%.

Last week we went 11 stocks up and 7 down. Since inception we are now 51 stocks up and 12 down for a 81% winning percentage (80% is our target win %).

Since our beginning, we have closed out the following positions:

The model portfolio assumes $10,000 invested in each stock (unless we double-up–then it is $20,000), less $10 commission each way (TD Ameritrade rate).

For the 45 stocks that we closed out since 2006 (41 were winners) the average net gain was 33%.

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE-RST)-Recommended 3/3/2011)
Buy Price-$12.62
Valuation $31.14
Closed down $.06 at $13.13
Up 4%-BUY

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-Recommended 3/3/2010)
Buy Price-$.92
Valuation $2.97
Closed down $.05 at $.97
Up 5%-BUY

Concurrent Computer (NASDAQ-CCUR)-Recommended 2/4/2011)
Buy Price-$5.08
Valuation $15.99
Closed up $.20 at $6.45
Skellig Capital Management filed a 13D/A in March pushing CCUR to use their excess cash to do a share buy back. They used examples in the filing of $6.60 and $6.90 a share. They also bought a few more shares of CCUR. Their ownership is up to 5.86%.
Up 27%-HOLD

SuperGen Inc. (NASDAQ-SUPG)-Recommended 10/4/2010)
Buy Price-$2.09
Valuation $4.89 (was $4.37, $3.48)
Closed up $.28 at $2.85
Upgraded to BUY by The Street.com recently.
Up 36%-HOLD

Performance Technolgy (PTIX-Recommended 3/30/2010)
Buy Price-$2.70
Valuation $3.87-(was $5.03, $5.98, $7.13)
Closed up $.13 at $2.01
Earnings due out March 30th after the market close.
Last earnings out in November. Not good. Sales were down 20% from last year to $6.3 million, and they lost $2.9 million or $.26 per share as they “invested” in sales and marketing. This, plus a bunch of new product announcements will hopefully boost sales and get some attention. Cash per share fell to $2.09, and our valuation fell to $3.87 as cash, sales and margins fell. Still trading below cash value, but that cash is dwindling.
Down 26% HOLD–close to a sell.

Extreme Networks (EXTR-Recommended 3/22/2010)
Buy Price-$3.04
Valuation-$7.36 (was $7.23, $7.31, $6.82, $6.81)
Closed up $.18 at $3.51
CFO resigned in March. Always makes stockholders jittery, but they also got a new CEO in October last year, so it is not unusual for a CFO to go, shortly after a new CEO comes in. They hired an interim CFO last week while they look for a permanent one.
Earnings out in February. Sales up 7% to $85 million and they made $.10 per share ($.06 if you exclude a favorable litigation settlement) versus a loss last year of $.02 per share. Cash per share rose $.08 to 1.55 and our valuation rose to $7.36. Next quarter guidance was $82-$85 million in sales and earnings of $.05-$.08 per share before a $.04/$.05 write off off some assets.
EXTR entered a settlement agreement with Ramius (Ramius owns 6.4% of EXTR). Declassify the Board, add a Ramius Director and the Ramius Director must be on any committee that reviews “strategic alternatives”. Pushing to sell EXTR obviously.
Still a cheap stock.
Up 16% HOLD

Broadvision (BVSN-Recommended 3/16/2010)
Buy Price-$13.50
Valuation $22.95-(was $22.31, $21.77, $23.37, $27.15)
$13.87 per share in cash.
Closed up $.33 at $14.48.
Earnings out in January. Revenue was $5.1 million and they made $.01 per share. Cash per share fell a tad to $13.60. Our valuation inched up to $22.95.
Up 7%. HOLD

Ninetowns Internet Technology (NINE-Recommended 1/25/2010)
Buy Price-$1.53
Valuation-$3.54 (Was $3.54, $3.19)
$2.88 per share in cash
Closed up $.04 at $1.40.
Earning out in October. Sales were $5.67 million for the first 6 months of 2010 and they lost $1 million. Cash rose to $2.88 per share and our valuation stayed at $3.54. Only doing about $10 million a year in sales, but still trading way below (50%) cash value.
Down 9%. BUY

Gravity Company Ltd. (GRVY-Recommended 1/18/2010)
Buy Price-$1.68
Valuation $5.73-(Was $4.38, $4.44, $5.15)
Closed up $.05 at $1.98.
Earnings out in November. Not bad. Cash rose to $2.33 per share and they made $.08 per share. Our valuation jumped to $5.73. Not bad at all. New game coming out in Korea this quarter (War of Gods), although Ragnarok 2 is delayed until at least Q2 2011.
Up 18%. HOLD

AEterna Zentaris (AEZS-Recommended 6/20/2009)
Buy price $1.42 (was $1.78 before adding another $10,000, $1.82 before double up)
Valuation –Speculation.
Closed up $.03 at $1.79.
Earnings out last week. Revenues about $10 million for the quarter and $27.7 for the year. They only lost $2.7 for the quarter and lost $20.5 for the year. Cash was $33.9 million before counting about $14 million of cash received in the current quarter for royalty payments, their Japan deal and sale of stock.
AEZS announced a new partnership for perifosine in Japan. They got $8 million upfront and up to another $60 million in the future. Plus AEZS gets to sell the compound to the company and gets double digit royalties. Not a bad deal.
Riding the tail of Kerx and perifosine, new orphan drug apporval from the FDA and a lot of investor interest in their pipeline of cancer products.
Speculative for sure.
Up 26% HOLD

Spectranetics (SPNC-Recommended 9/2/2006)
Buy price $5.68 (was $8.90, $9.40 before adding $10,000,and was $10.65 before double up), Valuation –$10.00
Closed down $.02 at $4.44.
Hmmm, CFO and 2 other officers got “change of control” agreements in March. Hope they actually mean something!
SPNC announced earnings in February. Nothing to write home about. Sales decreased 1% to $29.3 million. At least they were able to earn a profit of $.02 a share-even after their million dollar charge for EG. I think the only way we are going to make money on this one is if they are sold. Otherwise they just can’t perform and I think the stock will go nowhere.
Good news. Geisemheimer is off the Board! Now just a consultant through June.
13D filed in November 2010. Paragon Assoc. disclosed a 2 million share (6%) ownership purchased at $5.16 per share. Maybe we have a catalyst finally to push management to do something (like sell this dog).
The company has $33 million in cash ($.99 per share), no debt and is growing about 5% a year. Teetering on a SELL here. Management is just terrible.
Down 22%. HOLD.

Mediware (MEDW-Recommended 6/4/2007)
Buy Price $6.33, (was $6.52, $6.67 ($10,000 added), $6.98 after double up)
Valuation $15.04 (was $14.23, $15.02, $14.35, $12.13, $12.57, $12.29, $11.90, $11.30, $11.48, $11.47 $10.99, $10.28, $13.32, $12.89, $13.40)
Closed down $.55 at $12.08
Constellation continues to sell a few thousand shares here and there. Interesting move. Not sure if it is meant to goad MEDW management into doing something like selling the company to Constellation or someone else. The dollars involved in this sales is peanuts. It has been 9 months since they hired their investment bankers, so it is about time for something to happen.
Earnings out in February. Good again. Sales up 22% to $13.2 million and they made $.21 per share versus $.10 last year. Our valuation rose to $15.04–the highest ever.
MEDW re-engaged William Blair to look at “strategic alternatives”. Got to have an I Banker to sell your company.
Constellation now owns 21.8%. When is the take-over offer??
All we read is that medical records will be a hot area, so MEDW looks like the place to be.
Up 91%. HOLD

Angeion Corporation. (ANGN-Recommended 8/28/2008)
Buy Price-$3.82 (was $5.15 before $10,000 added)
NEW Valuation $13.60 (was $15.00, $13.06, $12.15, $11.29, $11.73, $11.47, $11.16, $9.53, $13.30, $13.03)
Closed up $.05 at $4.80
Earnings out in March. Not bad we thought. Sales up 7% to $7.1 million and they cut their weak quarter loss from $.20 a share to an adjusted profit of $.02 a share (excluding a severance charge for their ex-CEO). Our valuation fell to $13.60, but again this is their seasonally weak quarter, so we are not upset about it.
Up 26% BUY

OB-abies (Bulletin Board Listed Stocks)

As proven by OPTIO, patience is necessary with these stocks, especially in this Market.

ARI Networks (ARIS.ob-Recommended 8/19/2006)
Buy price $1.61 (Was $1.78 before another $10,000 added, was $2.06 before double up),
Valuation $5.39 (was $4,86, $5.60, $5.73, $5.54, $5.74, $5.96, $4.72, $5.19, $5.66, $5.63, $5.61, $5.71, $5.49, $5.34, $5.03, $5.28, $5.28, $5.21)
Closed at $.58 down $.17.
Earnings out in March. Sales down 2% to $5.238 million, operating income was $254,000 and they made $.02 per share. Our valuation jumped back up to $5.39 on higher than expected margins.
Wake up management–you have a great little company here worth 7X what it is selling for.
Now down 64%. BUY. Still a Huge valuation gap here.

Rand Worldwide (RWWI.ob (Was Avatech, AVSO.ob)-Bought November 28, 2005)
Buy price $.79 (Was $.93, $.99 and $1.19 before adding $10,000-each time),
Valuation $2.40 (was $1.90, $2.26 $3.07, $3.03, $2.38, $2.57, $2.81, $2.78, $3.30, $3.76, $4.00 $3.41, $3.05, $2.53, $3.25, $3.29 $2.69, $3.36, $3.81)
Stock closed at $.60, down $.05.
Earnings out in February. Sales were $21.7 million and they made $.02 a share. Our valuation jumped back up to $2.40 a share. Trading at 28% of our valuation. Cheap.
RWWI announced a $5.6 million deal in January. Maybe new management will get the word out on Rand and at least get us over $1.
Down 24%. BUY.

CTI Holdings (CTIG.ob-Recommended 2/25/2006)
Buy price $.27 ask,
Valuation $.71 (Was $.83, $.88 $.96, $.93, $.75, $.85, $1.57, $1.40, $1.29, $1.38, $1.31, $1.38, $1.29, $1.42, $1.28 $1.13, $1.05, $.82)
Ask price $.07, closed at $.06.
CTI announced in January that it paid off it’s bank debt with a replacement loan from Fairford-its largest shareholder. Hmmm, not a positive for sure. We still think this is worth a lot more in a sale than it is trading at. Have to keep an eye on this.
Earnings out in November. Sales were down only 6% from $3.6 million last year to $3.3 million, and they lost about $700,000. Their VOIP business continues to drain the company. Sales were a whopping $170,000 and it lost $600,000 excluding depreciation. Our valuation fell a bit to $.71.
At a $3 million market cap, this is stupidly cheap. Their itellectual property is probably worth 10 times this price. They need to liquify this value somehow.
They might have to sell or shut this VOIP business down in our opinion. Just losing too much money, and eroding shareholder value–or it could be a home run.
Still an “undercover” company and stock.
Down 74%. HOLD

Lotus Pharmaceuticals (LTUS.ob-Recommended 12/3/2007)
Buy price $1.68 (Was $1.80 before $10,000 adder, $2.16 before double-up)
Valuation-$4.84 (Was $4.98, $4.60, $3.82, $4.00, $3.68, $3.12, $3.98, $4.44, $3.22, $2.12, $4.56, $4.16)
Closed at $1.52, up $.17
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of stocks. No respect whatsoever. Now trading at less than 2X this years earnings! Ghost stories of ALL Chinese reverse merger companies being shams continue to spook stockholders. We don’t think LTUS is one of them.
Looks like the Mongolian land story has shifted again. Now they intend to keep some of the land and build a distribution facility on it and sell the rest for $50-$80 million. No matter to us, either number is more than their entire market cap right now, and TTM earnings are $.78 per share.
LTUS announced in February that they are expanding their Beijing factory by adding 2 more floors for a total of 11 floors, and that it is still expected to be completed by the end of this June. When the building is complete, they expect to have invested a total of $48 million ($36 million already spent) and that based on current market values, the building will be worth over $100 million. This plus the Mongolian land are worth 3 times the current market cap of LTUS. Oh yeah, then there is the $.80 in annual earnings. Think this is a buy?
The stock split 2 for 1 in December. All of our numbers have been adjusted to reflect this split.
They have $40 million invested in the Mongolian land. If they can just break even, they will solve their perceived liquidity problem and they have 2/3’s of their market cap in cash.
Earnings out in November. Sales up 28% and they made $6.7 million or $.24 per share. 9 month earnings are now $18 million or $.66 per share.
We are trading at just more than 2 times earnings and the company is growing-not contracting. China stocks are out of favor for sure.
They are projecting sales of $74 million and about $.80 of earnings. We expect they will beat these numbers. We bought 50,000 more shares in August personally, another 13,000 in October and another 5,000 in December and another 5,000 in January. Their new Bejing buiding is about 65% complete, and they extended their operating contract for another 20 years.
Down 10%. BUY

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Cheap Stocks, 3/18/2011 Update

Bad week all around. We were down 2.9%, slightly worse than the averages.

AVSO, SUPG, EXTR, and LTUS.ob are our favorites.

We are adding $10,000 each to our portfolio for LTUS ($1.35-new average buy price will be the same at $1.68), EXTR ($3.33-now average buy price will be $3.18) and SUPG ($2.57-new average buy price will be $2.31). We think the selling in these solid companies is overdone.

The DOW was down 1.5% last week, NASDAQ was down 2.7% and the S+P 500 was down 1.9%. The Russell 3000 and the Wilshire 5000 were both down about 1.8%.

For the year so far, we are up 5.9%. The DOW is up 2.4%, NASDAQ is DOWN .4%, S+P 500 is up 1.7%, Russell 3000 up 1.8% and the Wilshire is up 1.6%.

Last week we went 5 stocks up, 12 down and 1 even. Since inception we are now 51 stocks up and 12 down for a 81% winning percentage (80% is our target win %).

Since our beginning, we have closed out the following positions:

The model portfolio assumes $10,000 invested in each stock (unless we double-up–then it is $20,000), less $10 commission each way (TD Ameritrade rate).

For the 45 stocks that we closed out since 2006 (41 were winners) the average net gain was 33%.

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE-RST)-Recommended 3/3/2011)
Buy Price-$12.62
Valuation $31.14
Closed up $.17 at $13.19
Up 5%-BUY

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-Recommended 3/3/2010)
Buy Price-$.92
Valuation $2.97
Closed up $.12 at $1.02
Up 11%-BUY

Concurrent Computer (NASDAQ-CCUR)-Recommended 2/4/2011)
Buy Price-$5.08
Valuation $15.99
Closed up $.40 at $6.25
Skellig Capital Management filed a 13D/A in March pushing CCUR to use their excess cash to do a share buy back. They used examples in the filing of $6.60 and $6.90 a share. They also bought a few more shares of CCUR. Their ownership is up to 5.86%.
Up 23%-HOLD

SuperGen Inc. (NASDAQ-SUPG)-Recommended 10/4/2010)
Buy Price-$2.09
Valuation $4.89 (was $4.37, $3.48)
Closed down $.19 at $2.57
Upgraded to BUY by The Street.com recently.
Up 23%-HOLD

Performance Technolgy (PTIX-Recommended 3/30/2010)
Buy Price-$2.70
Valuation $3.87-(was $5.03, $5.98, $7.13)
Closed down $.04 at $1.88
Earnings due out March 30th after the market close.
Last earnings out in November. Not good. Sales were down 20% from last year to $6.3 million, and they lost $2.9 million or $.26 per share as they “invested” in sales and marketing. This, plus a bunch of new product announcements will hopefully boost sales and get some attention. Cash per share fell to $2.09, and our valuation fell to $3.87 as cash, sales and margins fell. Still trading below cash value, but that cash is dwindling.
Down 30% HOLD–close to a sell.

Extreme Networks (EXTR-Recommended 3/22/2010)
Buy Price-$3.04
Valuation-$7.36 (was $7.23, $7.31, $6.82, $6.81)
Closed down $.22 at $3.33
CFO resigned in March. Always makes stockholders jittery, but they also got a new CEO in October last year, so it is not unusual for a CFO to go, shortly after a new CEO comes in. They hired an interim CFO last week while they look for a permanent one.
Earnings out in February. Sales up 7% to $85 million and they made $.10 per share ($.06 if you exclude a favorable litigation settlement) versus a loss last year of $.02 per share. Cash per share rose $.08 to 1.55 and our valuation rose to $7.36. Next quarter guidance was $82-$85 million in sales and earnings of $.05-$.08 per shares before a $.04/$.05 write off off some assets.
EXTR entered a settlement agreement with Ramius (Ramius owns 6.4% of EXTR). Declassify the Board, add a Ramius Director and the Ramius Director must be on any committee that reviews “strategic alternatives”. Pushing to sell EXTR obviously.
Still a cheap stock.
Up 10% HOLD

Broadvision (BVSN-Recommended 3/16/2010)
Buy Price-$13.50
Valuation $22.95-(was $22.31, $21.77, $23.37, $27.15)
$13.87 per share in cash.
Closed up $.40 at $14.15.
BVSN continues to climb even in this crappy market.
Earnings out in January. Revenue was $5.1 million and they made $.01 per share. Cash per share fell a tad to $13.60. Our valuation inched up to $22.95.
Up 5%. HOLD

Ninetowns Internet Technology (NINE-Recommended 1/25/2010)
Buy Price-$1.53
Valuation-$3.54 (Was $3.54, $3.19)
$2.88 per share in cash
Closed down $.04 at $1.36.
Earning out in October. Sales were $5.67 million for the first 6 months of 2010 and they lost $1 million. Cash rose to $2.88 per share and our valuation stayed at $3.54. Only doing about $10 million a year in sales, but still trading way below (50%) cash value.
Down 11%. BUY

Gravity Company Ltd. (GRVY-Recommended 1/18/2010)
Buy Price-$1.68
Valuation $5.73-(Was $4.38, $4.44, $5.15)
Closed down $.07 at $1.93.
Earnings out in November. Not bad. Cash rose to $2.33 per share and they made $.08 per share. Our valuation jumped to $5.73. Not bad at all. New game coming out in Korea this quarter (War of Gods), although Ragnarok 2 is delayed until at least Q2 2011.
Up 15%. HOLD

AEterna Zentaris (AEZS-Recommended 6/20/2009)
Buy price $1.42 (was $1.78 before adding another $10,000, $1.82 before double up)
Valuation –Speculation.
Closed down $.08 at $1.76.
Earnings out this Tuesday before the open.
AEZS announced a new partnership for perifosine in Japan. They get $8 million upfront and up to another $60 million in the future. Plus AEZS gets to sell the compound to the company and gets double digit royalties. Not a bad deal. The stock spiked to over $2 on this news, and then proceeded to give most of the gain back as the market tanked in general.
Earnings out in October. Revenues were $5.7 million and they lost about $10 million or $.12 per share. Hey, at least they have real product revenues. Cash was about $40 million and they say their burn rate is about $6 million a quarter, so they have about 2 years to make this a $10 stock!
Riding the tail of Kerx and perifosine, new orphan drug apporval from the FDA and a lot of investor interest in their pipeline of cancer products.
Speculative for sure.
Up 24% HOLD

Spectranetics (SPNC-Recommended 9/2/2006)
Buy price $5.68 (was $8.90, $9.40 before adding $10,000,and was $10.65 before double up), Valuation –$10.00
Closed down $.04 at $4.46.
Hmmm, CFO and 2 other officers got “change of control” agreements in March. Hope they actually mean something!
SPNC announced earnings in February. Nothing to write home about. Sales decreased 1% to $29.3 million. At least they were able to earn a profit of $.02 a share-even after their million dollar charge for EG. I think the only way we are going to make money on this one is if they are sold. Otherwise they just can’t perform and I think the stock will go nowhere.
Good news. Geisemheimer is off the Board! Now just a consultant through June.
13D filed in November 2010. Paragon Assoc. disclosed a 2 million share (6%) ownership purchased at $5.16 per share. Maybe we have a catalyst finally to push management to do something (like sell this dog).
The company has $33 million in cash ($.99 per share), no debt and is growing about 5% a year. Teetering on a SELL here. Management is just terrible.
Down 21%. HOLD.

Mediware (MEDW-Recommended 6/4/2007)
Buy Price $6.33, (was $6.52, $6.67 ($10,000 added), $6.98 after double up)
Valuation $15.04 (was $14.23, $15.02, $14.35, $12.13, $12.57, $12.29, $11.90, $11.30, $11.48, $11.47 $10.99, $10.28, $13.32, $12.89, $13.40)
Closed down $.45 at $12.63
Constellation continues to sell a few thousand shares here and there. Interesting move. Not sure if it is meant to goad MEDW management into doing something like selling the company to Constellation or someone else. The dollars involved in this sales is peanuts. It has been 9 months since they hired their investment bankers, so it is about time for something to happen.
Earnings out in February. Good again. Sales up 22% to $13.2 million and they made $.21 per share versus $.10 last year. Our valuation rose to $15.04–the highest ever.
MEDW re-engaged William Blair to look at “strategic alternatives”. Got to have an I Banker to sell your company.
Constellation now owns 21.8%. When is the take-over offer??
All we read is that medical records will be a hot area, so MEDW looks like the place to be.
Up 99%. HOLD

Angeion Corporation. (ANGN-Recommended 8/28/2008)
Buy Price-$3.82 (was $5.15 before $10,000 added)
NEW Valuation $13.60 (was $15.00, $13.06, $12.15, $11.29, $11.73, $11.47, $11.16, $9.53, $13.30, $13.03)
Closed up $.02 at $4.75
Earnings out in March. Not bad we thought. Sales up 7% to $7.1 million and they cut their weak quarter loss from $.20 a share to an adjusted profit of $.02 a share (excluding a severance charge for their ex-CEO). Our valuation fell to $13.60, but again this is their seasonally weak quarter, so we are not upset about it.
Up 24% BUY

OB-abies (Bulletin Board Listed Stocks)

As proven by OPTIO, patience is necessary with these stocks, especially in this Market.

ARI Networks (ARIS.ob-Recommended 8/19/2006)
Buy price $1.61 (Was $1.78 before another $10,000 added, was $2.06 before double up),
NEW Valuation $5.39 (was $4,86, $5.60, $5.73, $5.54, $5.74, $5.96, $4.72, $5.19, $5.66, $5.63, $5.61, $5.71, $5.49, $5.34, $5.03, $5.28, $5.28, $5.21)
Closed at $.75 unchanged.
Earnings out last week. Sales down 2% to $5.238 million, operating income was $254,000 and they made $.02 per share. Our valuation jumped back up to $5.39 on higher than expected margins.
Wake up management–you have a great little company here worth 7X what it is selling for.
Now down 54%. BUY. Still a Huge valuation gap here.

Rand Worldwide (RWWI.ob (Was Avatech, AVSO.ob)-Bought November 28, 2005)
Buy price $.79 (Was $.93, $.99 and $1.19 before adding $10,000-each time),
Valuation $2.40 (was $1.90, $2.26 $3.07, $3.03, $2.38, $2.57, $2.81, $2.78, $3.30, $3.76, $4.00 $3.41, $3.05, $2.53, $3.25, $3.29 $2.69, $3.36, $3.81)
Stock closed at $.65, down $.01.
Earnings out in February. Sales were $21.7 million and they made $.02 a share. Our valuation jumped back up to $2.40 a share. Trading at 28% of our valuation. Cheap.
RWWI announced a $5.6 million deal in January. Maybe new management will get the word out on Rand and at least get us over $1.
Down 18%. BUY.

CTI Holdings (CTIG.ob-Recommended 2/25/2006)
Buy price $.27 ask,
Valuation $.71 (Was $.83, $.88 $.96, $.93, $.75, $.85, $1.57, $1.40, $1.29, $1.38, $1.31, $1.38, $1.29, $1.42, $1.28 $1.13, $1.05, $.82)
Ask price $.10, closed at $.08.
CTI announced in January that it paid off it’s bank debt with a replacement loan from Fairford-its largest shareholder. Hmmm, not a positive for sure. We still think this is worth a lot more in a sale than it is trading at. Have to keep an eye on this.
Earnings out in November. Sales were down only 6% from $3.6 million last year to $3.3 million, and they lost about $700,000. Their VOIP business continues to drain the company. Sales were a whopping $170,000 and it lost $600,000 excluding depreciation. Our valuation fell a bit to $.71.
At a $3 million market cap, this is stupidly cheap. Their itellectual property is probably worth 10 times this price. They need to liquify this value somehow.
They might have to sell or shut this VOIP business down in our opinion. Just losing too much money, and eroding shareholder value–or it could be a home run.
Still an “undercover” company and stock.
Down 63%. HOLD

Lotus Pharmaceuticals (LTUS.ob-Recommended 12/3/2007)
Buy price $1.68 (Was $1.80 before $10,000 adder, $2.16 before double-up)
Valuation-$4.84 (Was $4.98, $4.60, $3.82, $4.00, $3.68, $3.12, $3.98, $4.44, $3.22, $2.12, $4.56, $4.16)
Closed at $1.35, down $.24
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of stocks. No respect whatsoever. Now trading at less than 2X this years earnings! Ghost stories of ALL Chinese reverse merger companies being shams continue to spook stockholders. We don’t think LTUS is one of them.
Looks like the Mongolian land story has shifted again. Now they intend to keep some of the land and build a distribution facility on it and sell the rest for $50-$80 million. No matter to us, either number is more than their entire market cap right now, and TTM earnings are $.78 per share.
LTUS announced in February that they are expanding their Beijing factory by adding 2 more floors for a total of 11 floors, and that it is still expected to be completed by the end of this June. When the building is complete, they expect to have invested a total of $48 million ($36 million already spent) and that based on current market values, the building will be worth over $100 million. This plus the Mongolian land are worth 3 times the current market cap of LTUS. Oh yeah, then there is the $.80 in annual earnings. Think this is a buy?
The stock split 2 for 1 in December. All of our numbers have been adjusted to reflect this split.
They have $40 million invested in the Mongolian land. If they can just break even, they will solve their perceived liquidity problem and they have 2/3’s of their market cap in cash.
Earnings out in November. Sales up 28% and they made $6.7 million or $.24 per share. 9 month earnings are now $18 million or $.66 per share.
We are trading at just more than 2 times earnings and the company is growing-not contracting. China stocks are out of favor for sure.
They are projecting sales of $74 million and about $.80 of earnings. We expect they will beat these numbers. We bought 50,000 more shares in August personally, another 13,000 in October and another 5,000 in December and another 5,000 in January. Their new Bejing buiding is about 65% complete, and they extended their operating contract for another 20 years.
Down 25%. BUY

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Cheap Stocks, 3/11/2011 Update

We were down only .2% last week, while the averages were down 1 to 2.5%.

AVSO, ANGN, NINE, and LTUS.ob are our favorites.

The DOW was down 1% last week, NASDAQ was down 2.5% and the S+P 500 was down 1.3%. The Russell 3000 and the Wilshire 5000 were both down about 1.5%.

For the year so far, we are up 8.9%. The DOW is up 4%, NASDAQ up 2.4%, S+P 500 is up 3.7%, Russell 3000 up 3.7% and the Wilshire is up 3.4%.

Last week we went 6 stocks up, 11 down and 1 even. Since inception we are now 50 stocks up and 13 down for a 79.4% winning percentage (80% is our target win %).

Since our beginning, we have closed out the following positions:

The model portfolio assumes $10,000 invested in each stock (unless we double-up–then it is $20,000), less $10 commission each way (TD Ameritrade rate).

For the 45 stocks that we closed out since 2006 the average net gain was 33%. 3 of our current stocks are down less than 15%.

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE-RST)-Recommended 3/3/2011)
Buy Price-$12.62
Valuation $31.14
Closed down $.30 at $13.02
Up 3%-BUY

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-Recommended 3/3/2010)
Buy Price-$.92
Valuation $2.97
Closed down $.07 at $.90
Down 2%-BUY

Concurrent Computer (NASDAQ-CCUR)-Recommended 2/4/2011)
Buy Price-$5.08
Valuation $15.99
Closed up $.01 at $5.85
Skellig Capital Management filed a 13D/A in March pushing CCUR to use their excess cash to do a share buy back. They used examples in the filing of $6.60 and $6.90 a share. They also bought a few more shares of CCUR. Their ownership is up to 5.86%.
Up 15%-HOLD

SuperGen Inc. (NASDAQ-SUPG)-Recommended 10/4/2010)
Buy Price-$2.09
Valuation $4.89 (was $4.37, $3.48)
Closed down $.13 at $2.76
We blew it last week. We forgot to update on their 2/28 earnings report, sorry about that. Revenues were up 28% and they made $.11 a share. Cash rose to $1.93 and our valuation rose again to $4.89.
Upgraded to BUY by The Street.com recently.
Up 32%-HOLD

Performance Technolgy (PTIX-Recommended 3/30/2010)
Buy Price-$2.70
Valuation $3.87-(was $5.03, $5.98, $7.13)
Closed down $.10 at $1.92
Earnings due out March 30th after the market close.
Last earnings out in November. Not good. Sales were down 20% from last year to $6.3 million, and they lost $2.9 million or $.26 per share as they “invested” in sales and marketing. This, plus a bunch of new product announcements will hopefully boost sales and get some attention. Cash per share fell to $2.09, and our valuation fell to $3.87 as cash, sales and margins fell. Still trading below cash value, but that cash is dwindling.
Down 29% HOLD–close to a sell.

Extreme Networks (EXTR-Recommended 3/22/2010)
Buy Price-$3.04
Valuation-$7.36 (was $7.23, $7.31, $6.82, $6.81)
Closed down $.24 at $3.55
CFO resigned in March. Always makes stockholders jittery, but they also got a new CEO in October last year, so it is not unusual for a CFO to go, shortly after a new CEO comes in.
Earnings out in February. Sales up 7% to $85 million and they made $.10 per share ($.06 if you exclude a favorable litigation settlement) versus a loss last year of $.02 per share. Cash per share rose $.08 to 1.55 and our valuation rose to $7.36. Next quarter guidance was $82-$85 million in sales and earnings of $.05-$.08 per shares before a $.04/$.05 write off off some assets.
EXTR entered a settlement agreement with Ramius (Ramius owns 6.4% of EXTR). Declassify the Board, add a Ramius Director and the Ramius Director must be on any committee that reveiws “strategic alternatives”. Pushing to sell EXTR obviously.
Still a cheap stock.
Up 17% HOLD

Broadvision (BVSN-Recommended 3/16/2010)
Buy Price-$13.50
Valuation $22.95-(was $22.31, $21.77, $23.37, $27.15)
$13.87 per share in cash.
Closed up $.77 at $13.75.
Earnings out in January. Revenue was $5.1 million and they made $.01 per share. Cash per share fell a tad to $13.60. Our valuation inched up to $22.95. Trading below cash value.
Up 2%. HOLD

Ninetowns Internet Technology (NINE-Recommended 1/25/2010)
Buy Price-$1.53
Valuation-$3.54 (Was $3.54, $3.19)
$2.88 per share in cash
Closed up $.03 at $1.40.
Earning out in October. Sales were $5.67 million for the first 6 months of 2010 and they lost $1 million. Cash rose to $2.88 per share and our valuation stayed at $3.54. Only doing about $10 million a year in sales, but still trading way below (50%) cash value.
Down 9%. BUY

Gravity Company Ltd. (GRVY-Recommended 1/18/2010)
Buy Price-$1.68
Valuation $5.73-(Was $4.38, $4.44, $5.15)
Closed down $.14 at $2.00.
Earnings out in November. Not bad. Cash rose to $2.33 per share and they made $.08 per share. Our valuation jumped to $5.73. Not bad at all. New game coming out in Korea this quarter (War of Gods), although Ragnarok 2 is delayed until at least Q2 2011.
Up 19%. HOLD

AEterna Zentaris (AEZS-Recommended 6/20/2009)
Buy price $1.42 (was $1.78 before adding another $10,000, $1.82 before double up)
Valuation –Speculation.
Closed up $.03 at $1.84.
AEZS announced a new partnership for perifosine in Japan. They get $8 million upfront and up to another $60 million in the future. Plus AEZS gets to sell the compound to the company and gets double digit royalties. Not a bad deal. The stock spiked to over $2 on this news, and then proceeded to give most of the gain back as the market tanked in general.
Earnings out in October. Revenues were $5.7 million and they lost about $10 million or $.12 per share. Hey, at least they have real product revenues. Cash was about $40 million and they say their burn rate is about $6 million a quarter, so they have about 2 years to make this a $10 stock!
Riding the tail of Kerx and perifosine, new orphan drug apporval from the FDA and a lot of investor interest in their pipeline of cancer products.
Speculative for sure.
Up 29% HOLD

Spectranetics (SPNC-Recommended 9/2/2006)
Buy price $5.68 (was $8.90, $9.40 before adding $10,000,and was $10.65 before double up), Valuation –$10.00
Closed down $.16 at $4.50.
Hmmm, CFO and 2 other officers got “change of control” agreements last in March. Hope they actually mean something!
SPNC announced earnings in February. Nothing to write home about. Sales decreased 1% to $29.3 million. At least they were able to earn a profit of $.02 a share-even after their million dollar charge for EG. I think the only way we are going to make money on this one is if they are sold. Otherwise they just can’t perform and I think the stock will go nowhere.
Good news. Geisemheimer is off the Board! Now just a consultant through June.
13D filed in November 2010. Paragon Assoc. disclosed a 2 million share (6%) ownership purchased at $5.16 per share. Maybe we have a catalyst finally to push management to do something (like sell this dog).
The company has $33 million in cash ($.99 per share), no debt and is growing about 5% a year. Teetering on a SELL here. Management is just terrible.
Down 21%. HOLD.

Mediware (MEDW-Recommended 6/4/2007)
Buy Price $6.33, (was $6.52, $6.67 ($10,000 added), $6.98 after double up)
Valuation $15.04 (was $14.23, $15.02, $14.35, $12.13, $12.57, $12.29, $11.90, $11.30, $11.48, $11.47 $10.99, $10.28, $13.32, $12.89, $13.40)
Closed up $1.72 at $13.08
No news or reason for the price jump. Maybe a buyot is near?
Constellation continues to sell a few thousand shares here and there. Interesting move. Not sure if it is meant to goad MEDW management into doing something like selling the company to Constellation or someone else. The dollars involved in this sales is peanuts. It has been 9 months since they hired their investment bankers, so it is about time for something to happen.
Earnings out in February. Good again. Sales up 22% to $13.2 million and they made $.21 per share versus $.10 last year. Our valuation rose to $15.04–the highest ever.
MEDW re-engaged William Blair to look at “strategic alternatives”. Got to have an I Banker to sell your company.
Constellation now owns 22.8%. When is the take-over offer??
All we read is that medical records will be a hot area, so MEDW looks like the place to be.
Up 107%. HOLD

Angeion Corporation. (ANGN-Recommended 8/28/2008)
Buy Price-$3.82 (was $5.15 before $10,000 added)
NEW Valuation $13.60 (was $15.00, $13.06, $12.15, $11.29, $11.73, $11.47, $11.16, $9.53, $13.30, $13.03)
Closed down $.57 at $4.73
Earnings out last week. Not bad we thought. Sales up 7% to $7.1 million and they cut their weak quarter loss from $.20 a share to an adjusted profit of $.02 a share (excluding a severance charge for their ex-CEO). Our valuation fell to $13.60, ut again this is their seasonally weak quarter, so we are not upset about it.
Up 24% BUY

OB-abies (Bulletin Board Listed Stocks)

As proven by OPTIO, patience is necessary with these stocks, especially in this Market.

ARI Networks (ARIS.ob-Recommended 8/19/2006)
Buy price $1.61 (Was $1.78 before another $10,000 added, was $2.06 before double up),
Valuation $4.86 (was $5.60, $5.73, $5.54, $5.74, $5.96, $4.72, $5.19, $5.66, $5.63, $5.61, $5.71, $5.49, $5.34, $5.03, $5.28, $5.28, $5.21)
Closed at $.75 up $.20.
Earnings in December. Sales down 2% to $5.3 million, operating income was $445,000 and they made $.01 per share. Our valuation dropped to $4.86 on lower than expected margins.
Wake up management–you have a great little company here worth 10X what it is selling for.
Now down 54%. BUY. Still a Huge valuation gap here.

Rand Worldwide (RWWI.ob (Was Avatech, AVSO.ob)-Bought November 28, 2005)
Buy price $.79 (Was $.93, $.99 and $1.19 before adding $10,000-each time),
Valuation $2.40 (was $1.90, $2.26 $3.07, $3.03, $2.38, $2.57, $2.81, $2.78, $3.30, $3.76, $4.00 $3.41, $3.05, $2.53, $3.25, $3.29 $2.69, $3.36, $3.81)
Stock closed at $.66, down $.09.
Earnings out in February. Sales were $21.7 million and they made $.02 a share. Our valuation jumped back up to $2.40 a share. Trading at 28% of our valuation. Cheap.
RWWI announced a $5.6 million deal in January. Maybe new management will get the word out on Rand and at least get us over $1.
Down 17%. BUY.

CTI Holdings (CTIG.ob-Recommended 2/25/2006)
Buy price $.27 ask,
Valuation $.71 (Was $.83, $.88 $.96, $.93, $.75, $.85, $1.57, $1.40, $1.29, $1.38, $1.31, $1.38, $1.29, $1.42, $1.28 $1.13, $1.05, $.82)
Ask price $.10, closed at $.08.
CTI announced in January that it paid off it’s bank debt with a replacement loan from Fairford-its largest shareholder. Hmmm, not a positive for sure. We still think this is worth a lot more in a sale than it is trading at. Have to keep an eye on this.
Earnings out in November. Sales were down only 6% from $3.6 million last year to $3.3 million, and they lost about $700,000. Their VOIP business continues to drain the company. Sales were a whopping $170,000 and it lost $600,000 excluding depreciation. Our valuation fell a bit to $.71.
At a $3 million market cap, this is stupidly cheap. Their itellectual property is probably worth 10 times this price. They need to liquify this value somehow.
They might have to sell or shut this VOIP business down in our opinion. Just losing too much money, and eroding shareholder value–or it could be a home run.
Still an “undercover” company and stock.
Down 63%. HOLD

Lotus Pharmaceuticals (LTUS.ob-Recommended 12/3/2007)
Buy price $1.68 (Was $1.80 before $10,000 adder, $2.16 before double-up)
Valuation-$4.84 (Was $4.98, $4.60, $3.82, $4.00, $3.68, $3.12, $3.98, $4.44, $3.22, $2.12, $4.56, $4.16)
Closed at $1.59, down $.13
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of stocks. No respect whatsoever. Now trading at 2X this years earnings!
Looks like the Mongolian land story has shifted again. Now they intend to keep some of the land and build a distribution facility on it and sell the rest for $50-$80 million. No matter to us, either number is more than their entire market cap right now, and TTM earnings are $.78 per share.
LTUS announced in February that they are expanding their Beijing factory by adding 2 more floors for a total of 11 floors, and that it is still expected to be completed by the end of this June. When the building is complete, they expect to have invested a total of $48 million ($36 million already spent) and that based on current market values, the building will be worth over $100 million. This plus the Mongolian land are worth 3 times the current market cap of LTUS. Oh yeah, then there is the $.80 in annual earnings. Think this is a buy?
The stock split 2 for 1 in December. All of our numbers have been adjusted to reflect this split.
They have $40 million invested in the Mongolian land. If they can just break even, they will solve their perceived liquidity problem and they have 2/3’s of their market cap in cash.
Earnings out in November. Sales up 28% and they made $6.7 million or $.24 per share. 9 month earnings are now $18 million or $.66 per share.
We are trading at just more than 2 times earnings and the company is growing-not contracting. China stocks are out of favor for sure.
They are projecting sales of $74 million and about $.80 of earnings. We expect they will beat these numbers. We bought 50,000 more shares in August personally, another 13,000 in October and another 5,000 in December and another 5,000 in January. Their new Bejing buiding is about 65% complete, and they extended their operating contract for another 20 years.
Down 12%. BUY

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Cheap Stocks, 3/4/2011 Update

Last week was pretty much a breakeven for both the averages and us.

We sold IPAS for a 15% gain (including return of capital dividends) and bought HPOL and RST, ast week.

AVSO, ANGN, NINE, and LTUS.ob are our favorites.

The DOW was up .3% last week, NASDAQ was up .1% and the S+P 500 was up .1%. The Russell 3000 and the Wilshire 5000 were both up about .1%.

For the year so far, we are up 9.1%. The DOW is up 5.1%, NASDAQ up 5%, S+P 500 is up 5%, Russell 300 up 5.2% and the Wilshire is up 5%.

Last week we went 8 stocks up, 7 down and 4 even. Since inception we are now 50 stocks up and 13 down for a 79.4% winning percentage (80% is our target win %).

Since our beginning, we have closed out the following positions:

The model portfolio assumes $10,000 invested in each stock (unless we double-up–then it is $20,000), less $10 commission each way (TD Ameritrade rate).

For the 45 stocks that we closed out since 2006 the average net gain was 33%. 4 of our current stocks are down less than 15%.

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE-RST)-Recommended 3/3/2011)
Buy Price-$12.62
Valuation $31.14
Closed up $.70 at $13.32
Up 6%-BUY

Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-Recommended 3/3/2010)
Buy Price-$.92
Valuation $2.97
Closed up $.05 at $.97
Up 5%-BUY

Concurrent Computer (NASDAQ-CCUR)-Recommended 2/4/2011)
Buy Price-$5.08
Valuation $15.99
Closed down $.12 at $5.84
Skellig Capital Management file a 13D/A last week pushing CCUR to use their excess cash to do a share buy back. They used examples in the filing of $6.60 and $6.90 a share. They also bought a few more shares of CCUR. Their ownership is up to 5.86%.
Up 15%-HOLD

SuperGen Inc. (NASDAQ-SUPG)-Recommended 10/4/2010)
Buy Price-$2.09
Valuation $4.37 (was $3.48)
Closed down $.11 at $2.89
Upgraded to BUY by The Street.com last week.
Earnings due out on Monday, February 28th after the close.
Up 38%-HOLD

Performance Technolgy (PTIX-Recommended 3/30/2010)
Buy Price-$2.70
Valuation $3.87-(was $5.03, $5.98, $7.13)
Closed up $.01 at $2.02
Earnings due out March 30th after the market close.
Last earnings out in November. Not good. Sales were down 20% from last year to $6.3 million, and they lost $2.9 million or $.26 per share as they “invested” in sales and marketing. This, plus a bunch of new product announcements will hopefully boost sales and get some attention. Cash per share fell to $2.09, and our valuation fell to $3.87 as cash, sales and margins fell. Still trading below cash value, but that cash is dwindling.
Down 25% HOLD–close to a sell.

Extreme Networks (EXTR-Recommended 3/22/2010)
Buy Price-$3.04
Valuation-$7.36 (was $7.23, $7.31, $6.82, $6.81)
Closed unchanged at $3.79
CFO resigned last week. Always makes stockholders jittery, but they also got a new CEO in October last year, so it is not unusual for a CFO to go, shortly after a new CEO comes in.
Earnings out in February. Sales up 7% to $85 million and they made $.10 per share ($.06 if you exclude a favorable litigation settlement) versus a loss last year of $.02 per share. Cash per share rose $.08 to 1.55 and our valuation rose to $7.36. Next quarter guidance was $82-$85 million in sales and earnings of $.05-$.08 per shares before a $.04/$.05 write off off some assets.
EXTR entered a settlement agreement with Ramius (Ramius owns 6.4% of EXTR). Declassify the Board, add a Ramius Director and the Ramius Director must be on any committee that reveiws “strategic alternatives”. Pushing to sell EXTR obviously.
Still a cheap stock.
Up 25% HOLD

Broadvision (BVSN-Recommended 3/16/2010)
Buy Price-$13.50
Valuation $22.95-(was $22.31, $21.77, $23.37, $27.15)
$13.87 per share in cash.
Closed down $.19 at $12.98.
Earnings out in January. Revenue was $5.1 million and they made $.01 per share. Cash per share fell a tad to $13.60. Our valuation inched up to $22.95. Trading below cash value.
Down 4%. HOLD

Ninetowns Internet Technology (NINE-Recommended 1/25/2010)
Buy Price-$1.53
Valuation-$3.54 (Was $3.54, $3.19)
$2.88 per share in cash
Closed unchanged at $1.37.
Earning out in October. Sales were $5.67 million for the first 6 months of 2010 and they lost $1 million. Cash rose to $2.88 per share and our valuation stayed at $3.54. Only doing about $10 million a year in sales, but still trading way below (50%) cash value.
Down 11%. BUY

Gravity Company Ltd. (GRVY-Recommended 1/18/2010)
Buy Price-$1.68
Valuation $5.73-(Was $4.38, $4.44, $5.15)
Closed up $.09 at $2.14.
Earnings out in November. Not bad. Cash rose to $2.33 per share and they made $.08 per share. Our valuation jumped to $5.73. Not bad at all. New game coming out in Korea this quarter (War of Gods), although Ragnarok 2 is delayed until at least Q2 2011.
Up 27%. HOLD

AEterna Zentaris (AEZS-Recommended 6/20/2009)
Buy price $1.42 (was $1.78 before adding another $10,000, $1.82 before double up)
Valuation –Speculation.
Closed unchanged at $1.81.
Earnings out in October. Revenues were $5.7 million and they lost about $10 million or $.12 per share. Hey, at least they have real product revenues. Cash was about $40 million and they say their burn rate is about $6 million a quarter, so they have about 2 years to make this a $10 stock!
Fonds de solidarite des travailleurs du Quebec filed a 13G in mid-June disclosing they had reduced their holding down to 2.6% and Société Générale de Financement du Québec filed a 13D diclosing that they have been steadily reducing their holding from over 10% to under 5%. This dumping by these Canadian funds has been weighing on the market. We need some good news, or these guys to finish selling for the stock to go up.
Riding the tail of Kerx and perifosine, new orphan drug apporval from the FDA and a lot of investor interest in their pipeline of cancer products.
Speculative for sure.
Up 27% HOLD

Spectranetics (SPNC-Recommended 9/2/2006)
Buy price $5.68 (was $8.90, $9.40 before adding $10,000,and was $10.65 before double up), Valuation –$10.00
Closed down $.19 at $4.66.
Hmmm, CFO and 2 other officers got “change of control” agreements last week. Hope they actually mean something!
SPNC announced earnings in February. Nothing to write home about. Sales decreased 1% to $29.3 million. At least they were able to earn a profit of $.02 a share-even after their million dollar charge for EG. I think the only way we are going to make money on this one is if they are sold. Otherwise they just can’t perform and I think the stock will go nowhere.
Good news. Geisemheimer is off the Board! Now just a consultant through June.
13D filed in November 2010. Paragon Assoc. disclosed a 2 million share (6%) ownership purchased at $5.16 per share. Maybe we have a catalyst finally to push management to do something (like sell this dog).
The company has $33 million in cash ($.99 per share), no debt and is growing about 5% a year. Teetering on a SELL here. Management is just terrible.
Down 18%. HOLD.

Mediware (MEDW-Recommended 6/4/2007)
Buy Price $6.33, (was $6.52, $6.67 ($10,000 added), $6.98 after double up)
Valuation $15.04 (was $14.23, $15.02, $14.35, $12.13, $12.57, $12.29, $11.90, $11.30, $11.48, $11.47 $10.99, $10.28, $13.32, $12.89, $13.40)
Closed up $.18 at $11.36
Constellation continues to sell a few thousand shares here and there. Interesting move. Not sure if it is meant to goad MEDW management into doing something like selling the company to Constellation or someone else. The dollars involved in this sales is peanuts. It has been 9 months since they hired their investment bankers, so it is about time for something to happen.
Earnings out in February. Good again. Sales up 22% to $13.2 million and they made $.21 per share versus $.10 last year. Our valuation rose to $15.04–the highest ever.
MEDW re-engaged William Blair to look at “strategic alternatives”. Got to have an I Banker to sell your company.
Constellation now owns 22.8%. When is the take-over offer??
All we read is that medical records will be a hot area, so MEDW looks like the place to be.
Up 79%. HOLD

Vertro. (VTRO (was-MIVA)-Recommended 10/21/2007)
Buy Price $8.15 (Was $11.90 before adding another $20,000, $13.10 before another $10,000 and was $15.00 before double up),
Valuation $14.23 (was $12.40, $12.55, $10.85, $8.25, $9.45, $28.05, $32.10, $34.20, $37.90, $37.95)
Closed up $.04 at $3.96.
Earnings due out March 9th after the market close.
The stock got hammered earlier in February after they announced preliminary Q4 results. Then VTRO announced a share buyback program for $1 million over the next year. We didn’t think the pre-announcement was that bad, but it disappointed investors as revenues dropped sequentially to $9.6 million from $9.8 million in Q3. Of couse the $9.6 million is still 20% more than they did in Q4 last year. They also said that EBITDA would be up sequentially from Q3. The worry here is that their new business model which seemed to be just rolling along–may have been a fluke. It seems overdone to us. But then we have been in this one a long time and seen much worse results than this.
Earnings in November. They were good. Sales up 34% to $9.3 million and they made $.05 per share. Cash was $.99 per share and our valuation rose to $14.76.
13G filed on September 24th. Red Oak Partners now owns 5.2% of VTRO. Always nice to see someone else taking a good sized position in one of our stocks.
1 for 5 reverse split effected in August, so all numbers have been adjusted for this.
Down 52%. HOLD

Angeion Corporation. (ANGN-Recommended 8/28/2008)
Buy Price-$3.82 (was $5.15 before $10,000 added)
Valuation $15.00 (was $13.06, $12.15, $11.29, $11.73, $11.47, $11.16, $9.53, $13.30, $13.03)
Closed down $.03 at $5.30
Earnings due out March 9th after the close.
Earnings in December. Sales up 28% and they made $.10 a share. Our valuation rose to $15.00–our highest valuation ever. $2.48 per share in cash also.
Zacks upped their price target on ANGN to $7.
Up 39% BUY

OB-abies (Bulletin Board Listed Stocks)

As proven by OPTIO, patience is necessary with these stocks, especially in this Market.

ARI Networks (ARIS.ob-Recommended 8/19/2006)
Buy price $1.61 (Was $1.78 before another $10,000 added, was $2.06 before double up),
Valuation $4.86 (was $5.60, $5.73, $5.54, $5.74, $5.96, $4.72, $5.19, $5.66, $5.63, $5.61, $5.71, $5.49, $5.34, $5.03, $5.28, $5.28, $5.21)
Closed at $.55 down $.25.
Earnings in December. Sales down 2% to $5.3 million, operating income was $445,000 and they made $.01 per share. Our valuation dropped to $4.86 on lower than expected margins.
Wake up management–you have a great little company here worth 10X what it is selling for.
Now down 66%. BUY. Still a Huge valuation gap here.

Rand Worldwide (RWWI.ob (Was Avatech, AVSO.ob)-Bought November 28, 2005)
Buy price $.79 (Was $.93, $.99 and $1.19 before adding $10,000-each time),
Valuation $2.40 (was $1.90, $2.26 $3.07, $3.03, $2.38, $2.57, $2.81, $2.78, $3.30, $3.76, $4.00 $3.41, $3.05, $2.53, $3.25, $3.29 $2.69, $3.36, $3.81)
Stock closed at $.75, up $.05.
Earnings out in February. Sales were $21.7 million and they made $.02 a share. Our valuation jumped back up to $2.40 a share. Trading at 31% of our valuation. Cheap.
RWWI announced a $5.6 million deal in January. Maybe new management will get the word out on Rand and at least get us over $1.
Down 6%. BUY.

CTI Holdings (CTIG.ob-Recommended 2/25/2006)
Buy price $.27 ask,
Valuation $.71 (Was $.83, $.88 $.96, $.93, $.75, $.85, $1.57, $1.40, $1.29, $1.38, $1.31, $1.38, $1.29, $1.42, $1.28 $1.13, $1.05, $.82)
Ask price $.10, closed at $.08.
CTI announced in January that it paid off it’s bank debt with a replacement loan from Fairford-its largest shareholder. Hmmm, not a positive for sure. We still think this is worth a lot more in a sale than it is trading at. Have to keep an eye on this.
Earnings out in November. Sales were down only 6% from $3.6 million last year to $3.3 million, and they lost about $700,000. Their VOIP business continues to drain the company. Sales were a whopping $170,000 and it lost $600,000 excluding depreciation. Our valuation fell a bit to $.71.
At a $3 million market cap, this is stupidly cheap. Their itellectual property is probably worth 10 times this price. They need to liquify this value somehow.
They might have to sell or shut this VOIP business down in our opinion. Just losing too much money, and eroding shareholder value–or it could be a home run.
Still an “undercover” company and stock.
Down 63%. HOLD

Lotus Pharmaceuticals (LTUS.ob-Recommended 12/3/2007)
Buy price $1.68 (Was $1.80 before $10,000 adder, $2.16 before double-up)
Valuation-$4.84 (Was $4.98, $4.60, $3.82, $4.00, $3.68, $3.12, $3.98, $4.44, $3.22, $2.12, $4.56, $4.16)
Closed at $1.72, down $.08
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of stocks. No respect whatsoever.
Looks like the Mongolian land story has shifted again. Now they intend to keep some of the land and build a distribution facility on it and sell the rest for $50-$80 million. No matter to us, either number is more than their entire market cap right now, and TTM earnings are $.78 per share.
LTUS announced in February that they are expanding their Beijing factory by adding 2 more floors for a total of 11 floors, and that it is still expected to be completed by the end of this June. When the building is complete, they expect to have invested a total of $48 million ($36 million already spent) and that based on current market values, the building will be worth over $100 million. This plus the Mongolian land are worth 3 times the current market cap of LTUS. Oh yeah, then there is the $.80 in annual earnings. Think this is a buy?
The stock split 2 for 1 in December. All of our numbers have been adjusted to reflect this split.
They have $40 million invested in the Mongolian land. If they can just break even, they will solve their perceived liquidity problem and they have 2/3’s of their market cap in cash.
Earnings out in November. Sales up 28% and they made $6.7 million or $.24 per share. 9 month earnings are now $18 million or $.66 per share.
We are trading at just more than 2 times earnings and the company is growing-not contracting. China stocks are out of favor for sure.
They are projecting sales of $74 million and about $.80 of earnings. We expect they will beat these numbers. We bought 50,000 more shares in August personally, another 13,000 in October and another 5,000 in December and another 5,000 in January. Their new Bejing buiding is about 65% complete, and they extended their operating contract for another 20 years.
Down 4%. BUY

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SELL IPAS @ $1.64

Last quarterly earnings disappointed us. We expect our valuation to fall to about $2.70 next quarter based on their guidance. Not a screaming sell, but looks like dead money for a while.

We will take the $.55 in dividends (return of capital) and our 15% gain on this one.

We may be back some day, but not until their valuation starts to move in the right direction.

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Buy Recommendation-Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-$.92

Harris Interactive Inc. (NASDAQ–HPOL)Valuation-$2.97
Price March 3, 2011-$.92

We are back for HPOL for a fourth time. They have actually moved to a slightly positive net cash position, their brand name and sales volume (about $160 million a year) carry more weight. We have booked 110%, 30% and 27% gains on HPOL previously. We think this is just too cheap under a buck

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BUY Recommendation-Rosetta Stone-RST-$12.62

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE-RST)Valuation-$31.14
Price March 2, 2011-$12.62

Whoa! A NY Stock Exchange listed stock for us? Can’t be.

We have been struggling to find some compelling valuations and have been having little luck.

RST is a much more high profile stock than we usually recommend for sure. But with their disappointing earnings release this week, the stock has plunged to less than 50% of what our valuation model indicates. So we are taking the bait even though this high profile stock will be buffeted by a lot of institutional buying and selling.

The company has $5.75 a share in cash, about $240 million a year in sales and is profitable. Gross margins are in the 80% range. For 2011 they are projecting sales to increase from the $258 million in 2010, but lower profit ($.63 a share for 2010). Our valuation is based on $240 million in sales and no profit.

RST is trading at only 40% of our valuation. If it gets to just 60% of our valuation we have a 48% gain.

Average trading volume is only about 220,000 shares a day.

About Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone Inc. is changing the way the world learns languages. Rosetta Stone provides interactive solutions that are acclaimed for the speed and power to unlock the natural language-learning ability in everyone. Available in more than 30 languages, Rosetta Stone language-learning solutions are used by schools, organizations and millions of individuals in over 150 countries throughout the world. The company was founded in 1992 on the core beliefs that learning a language should be natural and instinctive and that interactive technology can replicate and activate the immersion method powerfully for learners of any age. The company is based in Arlington, Va.

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Cheap Stocks, 2/25/2011 Update

While the market swooned last week, we managed to keep our head above water with a .1% gain.

AVSO, ANGN, NINE, and LTUS.ob are our favorites.

The DOW was down 2.1% last week, NASDAQ was down 1.9% and the S+P 500 was down 1.7%. The Russell 3000 and the Wilshire 5000 were both down about 1.7%.

For the year so far, we are up 9.1%. The DOW is up 4.8%, NASDAQ up 4.8%, S+P 500 is up 5%, Russell 300 up 5.1% and the Wilshire is up 4.9%.

Last week we went 5 stocks up, 9 down and 3 even. Since inception we are now 49 stocks up and 12 down for a 80.3% winning percentage (80% is our target win %).

Since our beginning, we have closed out the following positions:

The model portfolio assumes $10,000 invested in each stock (unless we double-up–then it is $20,000), less $10 commission each way (TD Ameritrade rate).

For the 44 stocks that we closed out since 2006 the average net gain was 34%. 4 of our current stocks are down less than 15%.

Concurrent Computer (NASDAQ-CCUR)-Recommended 2/4/2011)
Buy Price-$5.08
Valuation $15.99
Closed down $.04 at $5.96
Skellig Capital Management file a 13D/A last week pushing CCUR to use their excess cash to do a share buy back. They used examples in the filing of $6.60 and $6.90 a share. They also bought a few more shares of CCUR. Their ownership is up to 5.86%.
Up 17%-HOLD

SuperGen Inc. (NASDAQ-SUPG)-Recommended 10/4/2010)
Buy Price-$2.09
Valuation $4.37 (was $3.48)
Closed down $.08 at $3.00
Earnings due out on Monday, February 28th after the close.
Up 44%-HOLD

Performance Technolgy (PTIX-Recommended 3/30/2010)
Buy Price-$2.70
Valuation $3.87-(was $5.03, $5.98, $7.13)
Closed up $.13 at $2.01
Earnings out in November. Not good. Sales were down 20% from last year to $6.3 million, and they lost $2.9 million or $.26 per share as they “invested” in sales and marketing. This, plus a bunch of new product announcements will hopefully boost sales and get some attention. Cash per share fell to $2.09, and our valuation fell to $3.87 as cash, sales and margins fell. Still trading below cash value, but that cash is dwindling.
Down 26% HOLD–close to a sell.

Extreme Networks (EXTR-Recommended 3/22/2010)
Buy Price-$3.04
Valuation-$7.36 (was $7.23, $7.31, $6.82, $6.81)
Closed down $.27 at $3.79
Earnings out in February. Sales up 7% to $85 million and they made $.10 per share ($.06 if you exclude a favorable litigation settlement) versus a loss last year of $.02 per share. Cash per share rose $.08 to 1.55 and our valuation rose to $7.36. Next quarter guidance was $82-$85 million in sales and earnings of $.05-$.08 per shares before a $.04/$.05 write off off some assets.
EXTR entered a settlement agreement with Ramius (Ramius owns 6.4% of EXTR). Declassify the Board, add a Ramius Director and the Ramius Director must be on any committee that reveiws “strategic alternatives”. Pushing to sell EXTR obviously.
Still a cheap stock.
Up 25% HOLD

Broadvision (BVSN-Recommended 3/16/2010)
Buy Price-$13.50
Valuation $22.95-(was $22.31, $21.77, $23.37, $27.15)
$13.87 per share in cash.
Closed up $.32 at $13.17.
Earnings out in January. Revenue was $5.1 million and they made $.01 per share. Cash per share fell a tad to $13.60. Our valuation inched up to $22.95. Trading below cash value.
Down 2%. HOLD

Gravity Company Ltd. (GRVY-Recommended 1/18/2010)
Buy Price-$1.68
Valuation $5.73-(Was $4.38, $4.44, $5.15)
Closed up $.05 at $2.05.
Earnings out in November. Not bad. Cash rose to $2.33 per share and they made $.08 per share. Our valuation jumped to $5.73. Not bad at all. New game coming out in Korea this quarter (War of Gods), although Ragnarok 2 is delayed until at least Q2 2011.
Up 22%. HOLD

AEterna Zentaris (AEZS-Recommended 6/20/2009)
Buy price $1.42 (was $1.78 before adding another $10,000, $1.82 before double up)
Valuation –Speculation.
Closed up $.11 at $1.81.
Earnings out in October. Revenues were $5.7 million and they lost about $10 million or $.12 per share. Hey, at least they have real product revenues. Cash was about $40 million and they say their burn rate is about $6 million a quarter, so they have about 2 years to make this a $10 stock!
Fonds de solidarite des travailleurs du Quebec filed a 13G in mid-June disclosing they had reduced their holding down to 2.6% and Société Générale de Financement du Québec filed a 13D diclosing that they have been steadily reducing their holding from over 10% to under 5%. This dumping by these Canadian funds has been weighing on the market. We need some good news, or these guys to finish selling for the stock to go up.
Riding the tail of Kerx and perifosine, new orphan drug apporval from the FDA and a lot of investor interest in their pipeline of cancer products.
Speculative for sure.
Up 27% HOLD

Spectranetics (SPNC-Recommended 9/2/2006)
Buy price $5.68 (was $8.90, $9.40 before adding $10,000,and was $10.65 before double up), Valuation –$10.00
Closed down $.04 at $4.85.
SPNC announced earnings in February. Nothing to write home about. Sales decreased 1% to $29.3 million. At least they were able to earn a profit of $.02 a share-even after their million dollar charge for EG. I think the only way we are going to make money on this one is if they are sold. Otherwise they just can’t perform and I think the stock will go nowhere.
Good news. Geisemheimer is off the Board! Now just a consultant through June.
13D filed in November 2010. Paragon Assoc. disclosed a 2 million share (6%) ownership purchased at $5.16 per share. Maybe we have a catalyst finally to push management to do something (like sell this dog).
The company has $33 million in cash ($.99 per share), no debt and is growing about 5% a year. Teetering on a SELL here. Management is just terrible.
Down 15%. HOLD.

Vertro. (VTRO (was-MIVA)-Recommended 10/21/2007)
Buy Price $8.15 (Was $11.90 before adding another $20,000, $13.10 before another $10,000 and was $15.00 before double up),
Valuation $14.23 (was $12.40, $12.55, $10.85, $8.25, $9.45, $28.05, $32.10, $34.20, $37.90, $37.95)
Closed down $.22 at $3.92.
The stock got hammered earlier in February after they announced preliminary Q4 results. Then VTRO announced a share buyback program for $1 million over the next year. We didn’t think the pre-announcement was that bad, but it disappointed investors as revenues dropped sequentially to $9.6 million from $9.8 million in Q3. Of couse the $9.6 million is still 20% more than they did in Q4 last year. They also said that EBITDA would be up sequentially from Q3. The worry here is that their new business model which seemed to be just rolling along–may have been a fluke. It seems overdone to us. But then we have been in this one a long time and seen much worse results than this.
Earnings in November. They were good. Sales up 34% to $9.3 million and they made $.05 per share. Cash was $.99 per share and our valuation rose to $14.76.
13G filed on September 24th. Red Oak Partners now owns 5.2% of VTRO. Always nice to see someone else taking a good sized position in one of our stocks.
1 for 5 reverse split effected in August, so all numbers have been adjusted for this.
Down 52%. HOLD

IPASS. (IPAS-Recommended 6/1/2008)
Buy Price-$1.35 (adjusted for $.32, $.16 and $.07 dividends) (Was $2.07 before another $10,000 added and $2.15 before double up
Valuation $3.23 (was $3.10, $2.95, $3.22, $3.34, $4.17, $4.73, $4.75, $4.12, $4.99, $4.30, $4.09)
Closed down $.06 at $1.47
Earnings out in February. Nothing too noteworthy. Sales down 5% to $38.6 million, however they did turn a $753,000 profit ($.01 per share). Cash fell a bit to $.53 per share. Our valuation rose to $3.23 per share on the elimination of losses and slightly higher sales. The fly in the ointment was their guidance on next quarter. Sales of $34-$36 million (down from $40 million last year) and a loss. This will knock our valuation down to about $2.70. Still not low enough to sell, but getting there.
IPASS announced in January that the number of hotspots had grown by 70% over the last four months to 263,000 making it the largest mobile network in the world. Pretty cool.
Foxhill ownership is 6.9% and Millenium owns 10.4%.
Up 6%. HOLD

Angeion Corporation. (ANGN-Recommended 8/28/2008)
Buy Price-$3.82 (was $5.15 before $10,000 added)
Valuation $15.00 (was $13.06, $12.15, $11.29, $11.73, $11.47, $11.16, $9.53, $13.30, $13.03)
Closed down $.16 at $5.33
Earnings due out March 9th after the close.
Earnings in December. Sales up 28% and they made $.10 a share. Our valuation rose to $15.00–our highest valuation ever. $2.48 per share in cash also.
Zacks upped their price target on ANGN to $7.
Up 39% BUY

OB-abies (Bulletin Board Listed Stocks)

As proven by OPTIO, patience is necessary with these stocks, especially in this Market.

ARI Networks (ARIS.ob-Recommended 8/19/2006)
Buy price $1.61 (Was $1.78 before another $10,000 added, was $2.06 before double up),
Valuation $4.86 (was $5.60, $5.73, $5.54, $5.74, $5.96, $4.72, $5.19, $5.66, $5.63, $5.61, $5.71, $5.49, $5.34, $5.03, $5.28, $5.28, $5.21)
Closed at $.80 unchanged.
Earnings in December. Sales down 2% to $5.3 million, operating income was $445,000 and they made $.01 per share. Our valuation dropped to $4.86 on lower than expected margins.
Wake up management–you have a great little company here worth 10X what it is selling for.
Now down 50%. BUY. Still a Huge valuation gap here.

Rand Worldwide (RWWI.ob (Was Avatech, AVSO.ob)-Bought November 28, 2005)
Buy price $.79 (Was $.93, $.99 and $1.19 before adding $10,000-each time),
Valuation $2.40 (was $1.90, $2.26 $3.07, $3.03, $2.38, $2.57, $2.81, $2.78, $3.30, $3.76, $4.00 $3.41, $3.05, $2.53, $3.25, $3.29 $2.69, $3.36, $3.81)
Stock closed at $.70, down $.05.
Earnings out in February. Sales were $21.7 million and they made $.02 a share. Our valuation jumped back up to $2.40 a share. Trading at 31% of our valuation. Cheap.
RWWI announced a $5.6 million deal in January. Maybe new management will get the word out on Rand and at least get us over $1.
Down 12%. BUY.

CTI Holdings (CTIG.ob-Recommended 2/25/2006)
Buy price $.27 ask,
Valuation $.71 (Was $.83, $.88 $.96, $.93, $.75, $.85, $1.57, $1.40, $1.29, $1.38, $1.31, $1.38, $1.29, $1.42, $1.28 $1.13, $1.05, $.82)
Ask price $.10, closed at $.08.
CTI announced in January that it paid off it’s bank debt with a replacement loan from Fairford-its largest shareholder. Hmmm, not a positive for sure. We still think this is worth a lot more in a sale than it is trading at. Have to keep an eye on this.
Earnings out in November. Sales were down only 6% from $3.6 million last year to $3.3 million, and they lost about $700,000. Their VOIP business continues to drain the company. Sales were a whopping $170,000 and it lost $600,000 excluding depreciation. Our valuation fell a bit to $.71.
At a $3 million market cap, this is stupidly cheap. Their itellectual property is probably worth 10 times this price. They need to liquify this value somehow.
They might have to sell or shut this VOIP business down in our opinion. Just losing too much money, and eroding shareholder value–or it could be a home run.
Still an “undercover” company and stock.
Down 63%. HOLD

Lotus Pharmaceuticals (LTUS.ob-Recommended 12/3/2007)
Buy price $1.68 (Was $1.80 before $10,000 adder, $2.16 before double-up)
Valuation-$4.84 (Was $4.98, $4.60, $3.82, $4.00, $3.68, $3.12, $3.98, $4.44, $3.22, $2.12, $4.56, $4.16)
Closed at $1.80, down $.04
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of stocks. No respect whatsoever.
Looks like the Mongolian land story has shifted again. Now they intend to keep some of the land and build a distribution facility on it and sell the rest for $50-$80 million. No matter to us, either number is more than their entire market cap right now, and TTM earnings are $.78 per share.
LTUS announced in February that they are expanding their Beijing factory by adding 2 more floors for a total of 11 floors, and that it is still expected to be completed by the end of this June. When the building is complete, they expect to have invested a total of $48 million ($36 million already spent) and that based on current market values, the building will be worth over $100 million. This plus the Mongolian land are worth 3 times the current market cap of LTUS. Oh yeah, then there is the $.80 in annual earnings. Think this is a buy?
The stock split 2 for 1 in December. All of our numbers have been adjusted to reflect this split.
They have $40 million invested in the Mongolian land. If they can just break even, they will solve their perceived liquidity problem and they have 2/3’s of their market cap in cash.
Earnings out in November. Sales up 28% and they made $6.7 million or $.24 per share. 9 month earnings are now $18 million or $.66 per share.
We are trading at less than 3 times earnings and the company is growing-not contracting. China stocks are out of favor for sure.
They are projecting sales of $74 million and about $.80 of earnings. We expect they will beat these numbers. We bought 50,000 more shares in August personally, another 13,000 in October and another 5,000 in December and another 5,000 in January. Their new Bejing buiding is about 65% complete, and they extended their operating contract for another 20 years.
Up .1%. BUY

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Cheap Stock Investor

Author: Dave O

Cheap Stocks, 4/8/2010 Update

Cheap Stocks, 4/1/2011 Update

Cheap Stocks, 3/25/2011 Update

Cheap Stocks, 3/18/2011 Update

Cheap Stocks, 3/11/2011 Update

Cheap Stocks, 3/4/2011 Update

SELL IPAS @ $1.64

Buy Recommendation-Harris Interactive (NASDAQ-HPOL)-$.92

BUY Recommendation-Rosetta Stone-RST-$12.62

Cheap Stocks, 2/25/2011 Update