is working, sorta kinda.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Exactly. I pointed that out earlier but nobody took it up - too busy getting digs in and not looking at the road. Who bought those shares? Coordinated? Interesting for sure.
Yep, and Prof. Li losses $64 million. I bet that’s his plan. Time to sell.
It’s remarkable that those shares were so easily scooped up. Somebody is a believer. Who could it be?
Right, should be “liquid assets”. I am not sure on the valuation of the IP. There are different formulas for that, but if tied to the potential market, $100 million?
Those of us that understand what it takes to bring a new material to market just focus on the helpful DD to give us a sense of what phase of development we are in. I am convinced we have passed the so-called "Valley of Death" some time ago and now in the first stages of commercialization. We already have one medical product in production, and quite a few companies committing resources to bringing this material to wide use in the marketplace. Add in $30 million in assets and no debt, and it's easy to see our high chance for success.
Thanks for the awesome work on this!
Nice! Thanks, I hadn’t seen that before.
It’s a penny stock. The risk is high. Full stop. Maybe your posts are cathartic? Listen to me: don’t let this worry about performance eat you up. Either it’s going to take off or it’s not. You can stay in on that hope, or jump out - maybe for a tax loss - at the end of the year.
If you are staying in, keep looking at the ecosystem built, the beginning of production with the dental equipment here, all the BMG publications out there and IP generation, and understand that this is just coming to market. The table is all set. Are you going to wait for dinner to be served, or are you going to leave the table for fear that liver is what’s for dinner?
I have hella more shares than you. I am still buying. We have years of cash to burn, so there is no rush to judgement needed.
The 46% is curious. Why not just buy 51%? He has the cash. The 46% did not give him the rights to the IP. The PLA did. Mutually agreed, mutual advantages. Something else was at play that set the limit of ownership.
That was a good read, thanks. It is very curious that Apple formed a joint venture with LiquidMetal, spent 30 million for the IP rights, spent a large amount of cash developing joint patents (I’ve read here some believe it’s over $100 million), and then dead silence. By all parties. Then you have this huge ramp up creating an ecosystem of companies (now relabeled from “maze” to “ecosystem” because that is what it is), 20,000 tons of sponge zirconium purchased and another 100,000 tons on order, machines (how many now), and a forward looking blog that they have never done since Prof Li took over. Well, maybe, maybe not, but something big is brewing.
Anyway, thanks again for that read.
Ditto, but I am hoping for a forward looking statement.
I don’t think that we have much time left to add it these prices. I am thankful to all those giving up their shares.
Of course. All one needs to do is look at the LiquidMetal Maze posted above and see the resources that are committed to raw materials, ready materials, and machines to realize that BMG's are launching. We already have a dental device in production and other small stuff, and more will come. We have about 30 million of assets, no debt, and a low burn rate. The next ER could even show that we are in the black. We are in a highly stabile position and a few analysts (that I've read here and elsewhere) believe that we are currently undervalued.
Add in the forward looking blog from the holidays and there you have it. I am still bullish for at least a buck a share by the EOY. Let's see what happens.
There’s no doubt in my mind. Thanks to you and PayMe!
Yep, that’s us. Nope, we’re not making money on it, lol.
Stay tuned. I think the big sale is coming. Check out the holiday blog on LiquidMetal.com, the posts stickied above, and think about the resources committed to LQMT in the corporate maze in the above box. Plus we have about 30 million cash and no debt. This isn’t your usual penny stock.
I haven’t seen you here before, but there is a lot of good info. The latest being the 20,000 tons of sponge zirconium delivered by one of the maze partners above, and another 100,000 tons in order. Check out PayMeMF posts and the ones stickied above if you already haven’t.
...and on your “T”. Awesome.
$$$LQMT!
Congrats on your LiquidMetal position.
992 C2S
Lol. Keep ‘em coming.
Great stuff, isn’t it? I am literally laughing out loud.
Right! LiquidMetal has $30 million in assets, no debt, low, low burn rate. This QTR we may see us go into the black. Prof. Li, the puppet master of the above maze of companies, owns nearly half the shares of LQMT and is our CEO. That’s about all I need to know for now with regard to that question.
Add in all the other stuff above, what’s been posted the last week, and I am good to go. I am still adding.
You’ve been here. You’ve read everything that I have read. Honestly, I just don’t care any more. There is no doubt in my mind where this is going and I am excited for this year. If the MMs keep the share price down manipulating sentiment, fine. I’ll just get more cheap shares. If investors can’t read and comprehend what’s happening here, get shaky and sell, fine. For me, I am not going to get caught - we are too close to the prize. 10x? At least. 20x? I might sell some. 100x? That’s where I am going. So the market is somewhere between 30-100 billion and we (LQMT and partners) are the only mass producer.
Hey PayMe and JoTu, thanks for the posts. Josh too. Add in B2F’s analysis and the stock looks like it could run at any time busting by the MMs hold. Too much good stuff and we are getting closer to ER.
It seems some investors are getting a bit nervous. Some of these posts are making me laugh at the crude attempt to move sentiment. Making a few bucks out of the LQMT cash machine might not have been a good idea.
Thanks kindly for sharing. Good stuff.
Crazy stuff PayMe. This stock really could break out at any time.
Yeeep! Testify Hyundai!
Yep, read it this morning. Tiny gears and hinges. Hmmm.
100,000 tons of raw material. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
It could be a very exciting year.
I get weak in the knees every time I read that. Holy cow. We could be sitting on a mountain of cash by the end of the year. Also thanks for the other comments below.
So sorry to those that cashed out for a few bucks. You might not be able to get back in - a real crap shoot at this point.
Thanks Pay for helping Nerd out. I was in the middle of a project and didn’t take the time to help - bad on me.
Do a search for PayMe’s post. It’s in there. Have a great weekend.
It's just a little bump today. For those that live off of a few grand here and there from trades, it matters. But for me, I'm in it for the big return. That January 100,000 tons of sponge zirconium is going in some product. Maybe ours, maybe not, but it's hella exciting to think about. I always like to look up at the Maze posted above, then the "stickied" info above, and remember that these are big companies committing major resources to LiquidMetal. Add in the holiday blog, a rare forward looking statement since Prof. Li took over, and there is no doubt in my mind that this thing is pumped and ready to roll.
What the MMs post machts nichts. We are fully position to be "one of those companies" that investors wished they had bought in the teens. BTW, I am still adding at these prices. Thank you all for continuing to give up shares.
Maybe somebody has figured out where that 100,000 tons of sponge zirconium is going....
Excellent question. Who owns the production patents? That’s during the Crucible years, right? Thats joint development with Apple, and yes, they would need to be very careful not to infringe or pay royalties. I imagine Apple’s team and Li are watching. We just had a rigorous defense of our trade name using some lawyers that Apple has used. I imagine we would be connected with Apple for patent defense for any infringement on Crucible patents.
The thing is, LiquidMetal/Crucible/Maze/Li is way ahead on raw material and production technologies. I don’t think that LQMT has a current threat. Having written that, if you believe that the market is 30-100 billion, there is room for other players.
Interesting, but perhaps they are not really competition? As we knew in the past, the cost per part is the determining factor and I doubt they have this worked out like the LiquidMetal Maze as seen above. They also wouldn’t have the capacity unless they have a new higher capacity machine and lots of them.
With regard to LiquidMetal becoming a supplier to Apple, here is an interesting article pulled today from Appleinsider and the Apple car. It is quite possible we are becoming or have a deal and it would be kept secret....
The ending of talks between Apple and Hyundai over potential "Apple Car" production was a very public misstep for the car producer, all caused by its lack of discretion.
Apple's demands for secrecy when it is in talks with suppliers and other partners over long-term projects was reinforced by the Hyundai negotiations. The decision to pause talks between the two companies was reportedly caused by the car maker's failure to keep quiet on the negotiations.
Hyundai "might have learned some lessons through this issue," said HI Investment & Securities head of research Koh Tae-bong to Bloomberg. "Keeping internal discussions internal is important."
This is an article that I read tonight in Bloomberg. If anyone really believes that they can predict investor buying, please read this. There are some parallels to LiquidMetal here, with one major exception: we have production and sales actually starting up, we have cash on hand, we have a basket full of patents, we have no debt, and we have global partners. When I read something like this, it makes me think that it is possible this stock can run big time. We have one of the main elements that uninformed investors seemingly love: a catchy name, lol.
EV Company With Almost No Revenue Posts 3,000% Gain in 8 Months
There is nothing about the finances of Blink Charging Co. that would suggest it’s one of the hottest stocks in America.
It’s never posted an annual profit in its 11-year history; it warned last year it could go bankrupt; it’s losing market share, pulls in anemic revenue and has churned through management in recent years.
And yet a hot stock it is. Investors have bid Blink’s share price up 3,000% over the past eight months. Only seven stocks -- out of about 2,700 that are worth at least $1 billion -- have risen more over that time. The reason: Blink is a green-energy company, an owner and operator of charging stations that power up electric vehicles. And if investors are certain of one thing in the mania that is sweeping through financial markets, it is that green companies are can’t-miss, must-own investments of the future.
No stock better captures this euphoria than Blink. With a market capitalization of $2.17 billion as of Monday, its enterprise value-to-sales ratio -- a common metric to gauge whether a stock is overvalued -- has blown out to 481. For some context, at Tesla Inc. -- the darling of the EV world and a company with a very rich valuation itself -- that number is just 26.
“Everything about it is wrong,” said Andrew Left, the founder of Citron Research. “It is just a cute name which caught the eye of retail investors.”
Citron was one of a handful of firms that bet against Blink last year, putting on short-sale trades that would pay off if the share price fell. It’s one of several wagers against stocks favored by the retail-investment crowd that have gone against Citron -- with GameStop Corp. being the most high-profile -- and prompted Left to declare Jan. 29 that the firm was abandoning its research into short-selling targets. Overall short interest on Blink -- a gauge of the amount of wagers against the stock -- has fallen to under 25% of free-floating shares from more than 40% in late December.
For the short-sellers, one of the things that raised alarms is that several figures tied to Blink, including CEO and Chairman Michael Farkas, were linked to companies that ran afoul of securities regulations years ago.
Farkas dismisses this and the other criticisms lobbied by the shorts. “There have been and always will be naysayers,” Farkas said in an email. “When I founded the business, the naysayers questioned whether the shift to EV was real. Now, as the value of our business grows, the naysayers tend to be the short sellers.”
Also See: Bloomberg Intelligence’s Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Dashboard
In the Crosshairs
Making money on charging is, historically, a losing proposition. In theory, a model like Blink’s that involves both equipment sales and collecting user fees could become consistently profitable as government support accelerates EV adoption. But no one’s done it yet.
“This market is still too small and early-stage,” said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates. “It will take time for economies of scale to materialize.”
Even by the industry’s fairly forgiving standards, Blink’s revenue is meager, totaling an estimated $5.5 million in 2020. ChargePoint Inc., which announced plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company last year, generated $144.5 million in revenue in 2020, according to a January filing. EVgo Services LLC, which is nearing a similar deal to go public through a SPAC, has a smaller charging network than Blink but more than double the sales -- an estimated $14 million in 2020. Despite the wildly different revenue figures, all three companies have an enterprise value of between $2.1 billion and $2.4 billion.
Blink warned in a May filing that its finances “raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern within a year,” a required disclosure when a company doesn’t have enough cash on hand for 18 months of expenses.
“Electric is real. The stock prices of companies in the space are not,” said Erik Gordon, an assistant professor at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “The dot-com boom produced some real companies, but most of the overpriced dot-com companies were lousy investments. The electric boom will be the same story. Some great companies will be built, but most of the investors who chase insanely-priced companies will be crying.”
Still, the recent market boom has breathed new life into Blink, allowing it to raise $232.1 million though a share offering in January. Roth Capital Partners as recently as Friday recommended buying the stock, giving it a price target of $67, 29% above the current level.
Shares fell 2.3% to $52.10 in New York Monday.
The company’s prospects rely on exponential EV growth, and Farkas in January discussed plans to deploy roughly 250,000 chargers “over the next several years” and often touts the company’s ability to generate recurring revenue from its network.
Currently, the company says it has 6,944 charging stations in its network. An internal map of Blink’s public fleet lists about 3,700 stations available in the U.S. By contrast, ChargePoint boasts a global public and private charging network that’s more than 15 times larger.
Unlike some of its competitors, Blink’s revenue model hinges in part on driving up utilization rates, which for now remain in the “low-single-digits,” too scant to generate significant revenue, Farkas said during a November earnings call. He told Bloomberg that use will increase as EVs become more popular.
For most chargers in operation now, utilization probably must reach 10%-15% to break even, although profitability depends on many other factors such as a company’s business model, electricity rates and capital costs, according to BloombergNEF Senior Associate Ryan Fisher.
Blink was an early market leader among charging companies but has lost its lead and now controls about 4% of the sector in Level 2 public charging, said Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, an electric car consulting and policy firm.
Blink has also acknowledged “material weaknesses” over its financial reporting, disclosed in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings dating back to 2011. The company says it has hired an accounting consultant to review its controls and is making necessary changes.
Origin Story
Blink’s colorful origin story has been a prime target of short-sellers. It traces back to 2006 when it formed as shell company New Image Concepts Inc. to provide “top-drawer” personal consulting services related to grooming, wardrobe and entertainment, according to an SEC filing.
In December 2009, the company entered a share exchange agreement with Car Charging Inc. Farkas joined the company as CEO in 2010, after working as a stockbroker and investing in companies including Skyway Communications Holding Corp., which the SEC deemed a “pump-and-dump scheme” during the years Farkas held shares. (Farkas said he was a passive investor, was unaware of any misdeeds and “had no involvement in any capacity in the activities of Skyway.”)
In 2013, Farkas oversaw Car Charging’s $3.3 million purchase of bankrupt Ecotality, which had received more than $100 million in U.S. Department of Energy grants to install chargers nationwide. The company later changed its name to Blink.
Since then, Blink has been plagued by executive turnover, with three of five board members departing between November 2018 and November 2019. The company has had two chief financial officers and three chief operating officers since 2017. One former COO, James Christodoulou, was fired in March 2020. He sued the company, accusing it of potential securities violations, and reached a settlement with Blink, which denied any wrongdoing, for $400,000 in October.
Financier Justin Keener, a one-time major Blink shareholder whose capital assisted the company’s 2018 Nasdaq listing, and the company he operated were charged last year for failing to register as a securities dealer while allegedly selling billions of penny-stock shares unrelated to Blink. He said he has since divested from Blink and now owns “a relatively small number of common shares” as a result of a settlement of a warrant dispute with the company. Keener denies the SEC allegations.
Farkas told Bloomberg he has cut all ties to Keener, was unaware of any investigations going on while they worked together and has no knowledge of any wrongdoing by Keener.
The surging stock has brought a windfall to Farkas, Blink’s largest shareholder. On Jan. 12, after shares rallied to records, he sold $22 million of stock, according to Bloomberg data. Farkas’s total compensation, including stock awards, totaled $6.5 million from 2016 to 2019, equivalent to more than half the company’s revenue. Included in his 2018 compensation were $394,466 in commissions to Farkas Group Inc., a third-party entity he controlled that Blink hired to install chargers.
Farkas said his compensation is justified given that he had personally invested in the company’s formation and had for many years received shares in lieu of salary.
More recently, Blink board member Donald Engel followed the CEO’s lead.
He sold more than $18 million of shares during the past two weeks.
I think that's a good plan to hold until November. We have a ton of cash on hand and investments, so this company can operate for many years as it is.
The thing about the blog is that we haven't seen any kind of forward looking mumbo jumbo since Prof. Li bought in. That is why this one is significant for me. Add in the Maze that illustrates a huge resource commitment by big companies and how they fit into the BMG market, the cross license agreement, the current production, and the other information "stickied" above and this looks like a promising year. I continue to buy shares at these prices.
...and yet, some people think that we would have a difficult time reaching two bucks a share. IMHO, when we snag a high profile customer and major contract, buyers of this stock will be looking at market potential (100 billion? Well!). We are the only game in town. I think that we could easily hit four to five bucks a share.
Look at Josh’s maze above. What I see is a billion dollar plus group of companies committed to support LiquidMetal production. Some here would have you believe it’s a nothingburger. That would mean all those companies have no idea what they are doing by committing all those resources. This stock is sitting at ten cents because a) MMs are manipulating it to shake shares loose to wash, rinse, repeat, b) nobody knows about us, and c) are waiting to jump on when the business model is proven. Regarding (c), that’s also not a bad choice as there will still be bucks to be made as it runs up.
Again, looking at the Maze, companies do not commit to major resources without a strategic business plan. That holiday blog was the tell that it’s coming this year. With regard to all the screeching noise, just turn down the volume and relax. Good luck to you.
Thanks for sharing OTW! Do you mind if I post this again just to put it at the top of the page?
http://www.cs.com.cn/ssgs/gsxw/202102/t20210203_6137136.html
Coincidental...
Yian Technology: The overall integration of automobiles is the trend of future development
Dong Tian China Securities Journal·China Securities Network2021-02-03 19:29
China Securities News (Reporter Dong Tian) On February 3, Yian Technology announced that the overall integration of automobiles is the trend of future development. The light alloy of the automobile is integrated, and the traditional multiple parts are formed by large precision die-casting at one time, which can reduce the weight of the car body to increase the endurance and reduce the processing procedures.
Yian Technology pointed out that the company's new energy vehicle products mainly include motor, electronic control, battery pack, steering gear, central control navigation and other parts and liquid metal lock cover. Yian Technology can provide customers with various parts and components in motors, electronic controls, battery packs, steering gears and central control navigation, and enter the supply chain of well-known customers at home and abroad. At present, Yi'an Technology is relying on the company's R&D advantages in the field of materials to help downstream new energy vehicles and battery companies develop and manufacture lightweight new materials, and has successfully applied rare earth magnesium alloys, ultra-thin magnesium alloys and liquid metals. New energy vehicles have played an important role in reducing weight and increasing cruising range.
It is understood that Yian Technology is also promoting the lightweight of new energy vehicles through integrated technology. As one of the earliest companies in the world to deploy large-scale aluminum and magnesium alloy die-casting equipment, Yian Technology is equipped with 4200T, 3500T, 2700T and 1600T and other types of large-scale vacuum die-casting equipment, which can meet the production needs of large-scale precision die-casting integrated products of different specifications. , To provide customers with one-stop services from mold design and development, die-casting molding, finishing, surface treatment, testing, packaging and other processes. It is worth mentioning that Yian Technology will also combine the market development and the actual needs of customers’ products to jointly develop and manufacture 6000T and above die-casting integrated molding equipment with equipment manufacturers. In the future, it can better integrate new energy vehicle parts and realize Wider application on die casting products.
Thanks JB.
Yes, he is going to sneak out of town and leave his $64 million bucks behind. It makes total sense. He is scamming us and himself at the same time - very efficient.
Just quickly - I do what's possible over a short lunch break. If you spoon feed stuff to me, I might catch it and make edits, I might not. There are others here who can make edits, too.
I put the "Maze" of Liquidmetal partnerships up in the information box - easier to see.