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Kanya: Please provide a source for the sales numbers you are quoting. That is not my understanding at all.
Jeff: Get real. Do I understand you to believe that P&W paid full price for the software and then were given membership in the Early Adopter's Program as sort of a bonus? I stand by everything I said. Let's wait a few weeks and see who is correct.
Jeff: Happy to answer your question, but first let's look realistically at what this new "order" is. P&W did not adopt SGLB technology as a standard. They did not purchase multiple units. They did not pay full price. They joined the Early Adopters Program which according to SGL:B's own terminology means that they are beginning an evaluation and trial of their software and services. They have been provided with "pricing incentives" to do so as well as preferred pricing for future purchases, if any. Do I believe this will cause the lemmings to rush out and push the price up? Yes I do. Do I believe it is sustainable? No I do not. They are facing a major dilution before the end of this quarter. It remains to be seen whether they will qualify for the NASDAQ Capital Markets on more than one criteria. So, let's give it another two months and see where we stand. It will take that long to assess the impact of any forced dilution as well as their success and getting SGLB listed.
Jeff and Jackie: Gosh guys didn't mean to upset you. Maybe it will be $6.00 tomorrow. Better buy some more in the morning before it gets away from you.
KMey. All you really have here is an OEM who has said he is willing to install the software on his machines and attempt to sell it. You have a revenue estimate by Mark (which in the past has proven less than worthless) that SGLB will receive six million dollars over seven years. You have no confirmed sales to end users. You don't have squat!!. Yet you claim this to be "proof of concept" and ample justification for the price increasing fourfold in three days?? Brace yourself the "good times" are going to be short-lived.
Sub $2.00 within the next 30 days assuming no news by next week that provides a basis for the share price increase.
Who here really believes (be honest now) that the whole world woke up Monday morning and decided that SGLB is suddenly worth four times what it was worth last week? If by some quirk of fate it actually is worth four times what it was worth last week (GE and Honeywell are adopting SGLB technology as a standard from this day forward) how do you feel about Mark not releasing the news immediately so that all (instead of a privileged few) could benefit from the news?
I'm quite likely wrong, but I believe the stock price is being manipulated for the benefit of the NASDAQ listing.
Capt. You don't sell the next day you sell within minutes and then buy again. No risk at all other than paying the spread.
Jeff: Normally materials, labor, and overhead. They also need to adopt a cash flow policy FIFO/LIFO etc. It's definitely not valued at sales price. I would expect any inventory values to be pretty low.
Jam: My understanding is that it must have a minimum closing price of $3.00 at the time of uplisting. I don't recall reading about a requirement to maintain that minimum for any set period of time, but I'm not knowledgeable in any detail on the requirements. Another requirement is two million in assets. With the patents mortgaged the only other significant asset they have is the metal printer. With the accrued depreciation over three years now there may not be enough equity to meet that standard
Chef A single trader can trade an awful lot of volume by buying and selling 5000 share lots. Assuming there is major news that warrants this kind of price movement. How do you feel about the news being leaked to a few insiders without providing a level playing field to all the stockholders?
The faster this goes up the more I think it's being artificially manipulated to meet the $3.00 threshold for the Capital Mkts. If they don't make a major contract announcement within the next few days you are going to see a very hasty retreat in the share price
"They can drive up the price by buying at the ask, but where are all the buyers coming from who are buying at higher and higher bids. And given that this is occurring is it really all that "artificial"? A whole lot of somebodies are wanting those shares at those prices." I'm not claiming that this is happening but the way it works is that you keep recycling your funds by selling at the bid and then buying at the next higher ask. It costs you the spread each time but the volume doubles and it gives the impression of increasing demand as well as higher prices. You can accomplish with a single buyer and seller. This has certainly been done before, but whether it's happening here is anybody's guess.
Get Rich: You say "I believe that many old Sglb investors are reallocating funds back with a few newbies along the way." I don't believe this for a minute. The idea that over the course of a weekend investors who had driven the share price down to below a dollar would suddenly have an epiphany and bid the share price up 80% in a single day is less than improbable. The most likely cause of the share price increase is a major positive event that was leaked to selected investors (illegally, I might add). SGLB must file a Form 8K within four business days of the event under SEC guidelines to publicly disclose the "event" and give all shareholders an equal opportunity to invest.
There is another possibility for the sudden increase in the share price however. SGLB has to maintain an average share price of $3.00 to qualify for the Capital Markets upgrade. The stock had been languishing around the one dollar mark for weeks until the latest OEM contract announcement. It quickly became clear that this announcement alone was not going to propel the stock price to $3.00 and beyond. With the addition of the new Board members SGLB has clearly signaled that they intend to upgrade. I continue to believe that a factor complicating these plans, in addition to the share price, is that the loan proceeds will almost certainly be exhausted this quarter. If the company was forced to have a share offering without major contract announcements or an upgrade the stock price would be decimated. So, what's the solution? The solution is to invest $40-50,000 to artificially drive up the share price to $3.00 and beyond. How would someone accomplish this? Simply by purchasing shares at the "ask" and turning around and selling those same shares at the "bid" price. The share price would climb rapidly and volume would dramatically increase as well. Shareholders would be led to believe that an important announcement was about to be released and would assist with the buying. Who would benefit from such a plan? Obviously the large shareholders as well as the ability to hold a stock offering at a considerably higher offering price. Once it became obvious that there were no new contracts/orders/etc. the stock price would rapidly retreat, but by that time the damage would have been done. I give this scenario a low probability of actually occurring, but if you do not see an announcement of further contracts/orders in the next few days hang onto your wallets because the share price is going to sink as fast as it went up.
Certainly strange price action today. Either there is another sale (a major one from the looks of the pricing action) or the underwriter is trying to get the share price up to qualify for an uplisting prior to another share offering. The reason should be clear soon.
Hi Minding: Good to see you posting here. I'm holding strong in ARTH as well. I miss your posts from the "other forum" as well as the SGLB Board. I've continued to post there simply because so many inexperienced investors continue to be led down the garden path by a few of the more outrageous promoters.
In addition to ARTH I continue to like ATHX, and have done very well with NBEV and HNR. The rest of my portfolio is pretty bland. Give me a shout sometime at alanthill1@gmail.com and let me know what looks good from your perspective.
Silver.....let's revisit this in April. By the way are you planning on attending the Board meeting this year? I believe I have some doughnuts coming. I'd enjoy having a beer together.
Max: That was my mistake. When Bell and Garofalo were announced last July I did not pick up on the fact that they were not joining the Board immediately. I remembered their qualifications, but not the names, and when it was announced that they were actually joining the Board recently I thought that we had gained two additional highly qualified Board members. O'Mara runs his own management consulting firm, and had he chosen to, I believe he could have helped Mark make better business decisions than he did. To my knowledge he didn't bother to get involved at all and it is no loss to see him go. My apologies for the misunderstanding.
Jeff: Here is what I know. The loan proceeds (at SGLB's current expense run rate) and no significant new revenue, will be exhausted before the end of Q-1. That gives them just weeks to announce a contract that provides revenue immediately (not over years) in order to avoid a share offering. Another loan is out of the question because their primary assets are already mortgaged.
In terms of being bitter, in one sense you are correct. I am bitterly disappointed and embarassed by SGLB's performance. New Mexico is a poor state and I believed initially that these guys would be instrumental in providing a real breakthrough in leading edge technology. Mark has proven in my opinion to be an incompetent and less than forthright manager and has operated the company more as a research center than as a profit making enterprise. In one sense I probably should just walk away but I continue to see posts from a number of inexperienced investors who have already lost a considerable amount of money here who remain involved by what I consider to be unfounded optimistic posting by a number of posters here. I guess I'm just stubborn enough to stick around and provide "the other side of the story" If that is being "bitter" so be it.
"reported revenue is the only way SGLB will be priced anywhere close to its potential." Certainly sounds reasonable to me. That's how other company's are measured. What makes SGLB unique? As for Train's hope that they will soon get off the OTC market I'm afraid that reality is far in the future, if ever. They are light years away from qualifying for even the most lenient of standards. The coming dilution is going to squash those ambitions even further yet.
Hawks. Valid point. I think you are correct. A major manufacturer OEM would have more credibility than SGLB and that is certainly a positive.
The fact remains however that whether the OEM buys a license or is compensating SGLB on a per-unit basis they have to recover their investment through sales to their end customers. This means that the end user has to see a measurable benefit for the expense incurred. To date SGLB has not been successful in making this case. Either the metal production levels have not been significant enough to justify the expense, or the end user has adopted a competing quality assurance product as a standard. While I agree that a major OEM will have more credibility with their customer base than SGLB would have they are still going to be facing the same issues that the SGLB sales team has faced. It will take several months before we know how successful they will ultimately be and I personally don't believe this contract is going to make much of an impact on the share price until significant revenue starts turning up on the quarterly reports.
Driftin: "The company is now in a better position than it appeared to be yesterday. The company now is in a better position if they have to seek a loan or private placement to secure the $ to repay the recent loan and regain control of ownership of the IP should the revenues not provide sufficient cash." Totally agree....and we will likely see how much better off, if they are forced to have a share offering this quarter.
Making the assumption that they will be paid on a unit sales basis by the OEM (yes, I know it's an assumption and I have no evidence that's the case, although it would seem to be the only logical arrangement) the OEM will have to charge a premium price for hardware with SGLB's software embedded. SGLB will receive "X" for each unit sold and presumably the OEM will earn an additional profit of "Y". Since the end user is obviously going to have to pay for the SGLB capabilities why do we believe that there will be more sales through the OEM than SGLB could manage on it's own? If the market (as many pundits here claim) is still not geared up for large scale production why would sales via this channel be any more productive than SGLB's attempts to market a hardware independent solution? I don't know. Do you?
Driftin. Don't get too excited yet. As others have pointed out I'd be willing to bet that the contract is based upon unit sales. The OEM would be crazy to accept it any other way. That means that while the OEM is convinced (one would assume) that SGLB is going to contribute to their bottom line they have to convince their end users that the product justifies a premium price. In my opinion (we will almost certainly never know the details of the contract) this is why there is a revenue "estimate" over a period of years. Revenue to SGLB is dependent upon OEM sales with SGLB's technology embedded. As to this being a temporary pop in the share price it appears to be already shaping up that way.
Certainly a step in the right direction. A couple of key questions that could stand some clarification before I get too excited however. Is the six million dollar revenue "anticipated" by Mark or the OEM. If it's by Mark I'd consider his past record of "anticipations". If "long term" is a couple years that's certainly positive....if it's five or more years not so much. The devil is in the details.
Silver. That is certainly an interesting take on things. It's those miserly investors who have yet to show their faith in SGLB's potential. It's the investors who are responsible for running the company into the ground. It's the investors who have failed to put up even more money for Mark to squander. I have to admit however that your suggestion to take the company private is sound. After all Mark has been acting like it is a private research organization for some time now. Best of all after it goes private it will be Mark's money on the line and not those stingy investors. That would be a treat.
High quality additions to the Board with backgrounds that could be of immediate benefit to the company. Unless they get involved however it won't make any difference. We already have several of our newer board members with strong technical and financial backgrounds that have failed to contribute a thing. Let's hope the new guys are different.
For the Board and senior management they would be required to file a form 4 if they purchased stock on the open market. None has ever been filed. In terms of the engineering community that was exposed to the SGLB technology buying stock there is no way to tell one way or the other of course. I make my assertion based upon the fact that the volume is non-existent so no one is buying, including the engineering community.
The daily volume here tells the story as clear as can be. With some 25 test/evaluation sites, active grant programs, joint ventures, etc., etc. hundreds of engineers have had an opportunity to test and evaluate SGLB's product suite. These are the folks who are most knowledgeable of their industry's needs (not the pundits here) and not only have their organizations not signed up for product they would be required to pay for, but the engineers themselves have obviously not signed up for the stock offering.
Here is a stock that some say is bound to be an industry standard and yet trades for under a dollar on less than 5000 shares traded daily. When you add in the engineers who have listened to Mark espouse about the virtues of SGLB at every trade show known to man the audience becomes much bigger, yet still no volume. The kicker however is that no member of the management team, nor any board member, has EVER purchased a single share of SGLB on the open market. One would think when it was selling for .75 a share someone in the company might have thought that it had some future promise. Nope!! So, here we have a company that many here keep telling us is going to revolutionize in process quality assurance, whose products have been on the market for months (in some cases years), with no significant sales where even management and board members fail to purchase stock at what we keep being told is a screaming bargain. Go figure.
What's interesting to me is that the Board seems to be studiously avoiding discussing the dilution train that is rapidly approaching at 90 MPH down the track. Unless there is a major order announcement in the next 60 days it seems inevitable to me that SGLB will be forced to have a share offering. If that occurs the share price is going to take a significant hit and each share is going to be worth less. The questions that would bear discussing in my mind are:
1. What do I believe the odds are of an order materializing in the near term that would negate the need for issuing more shares?
2. What provides my best option at this point in time? Taking my losses and selling now? Retaining my belief in SGLB's eventual success and accepting a significant reduction in my ownership interest?
A factor that aggravates the ugliness of any offering is that in addition to providing operating expenses for some period of time, the offering must also provide sufficient funds for the loan repayment and interest due.
All the discussions of dot connecting, America Makes, DARPA, etc. won't mean much until SGLB gets over this hump. There are reasonable arguments to be made for playing this either way. It seems to me that they are worthy of discussion.
For those of you who will undoubtably label me as an alarmist I would very much like to hear your scenario of how you see events unfolding when the loan funds run out.
Kanya: This is what I believe. I believe wholeheartedly in the market's need for solutions such as those proposed by SGLB. I believe (to the best of my limited technical knowledge) in the conceptual approach SGLB has taken to meeting those needs. I do not believe that SGLB's solutions have been validated by the market as yet. (I can already hear the screams about the "market" not being mature enough, GE not ready yet, etc.). The fact remains, in my mind at least, that if the SGLB solutions provided the cost benefits claimed that there would have been significant order activity by this time or they would have been gobbled up by a major industry player. In my mind that calls into question whether their solutions actually provide the benefits claimed or whether they are still unstable at this point and unreliable in a high production environment. Finally I do not believe in Mark's ability to operate the business. It has functioned as an R&D Research Center, dependent upon grants to survive, from the very beginning and shows no indication of changing it's stripes. Additionally Mark has been less than candid on enough occasions that I simply do not trust him. The Board, who is legally charged with a fiduciary duty to look out for stockholder interests, has been ineffective and non attentive in that regard.
SGLB faces a major funding crisis in the very near term. Their loan proceeds will be depleted this quarter and a share offering will be necessary. With no major orders on the horizon the share dilution will be brutal.
Overall, given Mark's total lack of business acumen, the Board's inattention to stockholder interests, the as yet unproven (in my mind) validity of their offerings, and the upcoming major dilution of stockholder value I believe their very existence may be in question soon.
A pleasant illusion is far more satisfying than a harsh reality.
Buppy, if there are no current purchases I'm not sure why leases would be any more attractive to end users. Clearly however revenue is needed and in a hurry. I believe we can assume that there were no significant software sales in Q-4. SGLB would have been required (and eager) to report any such sales if they occurred. They will exhaust the loan proceeds at their current expense run rate prior to the end of Q-1. Assuming that nothing much changes between now and then they are going to be faced with a dilemma that I'm not certain they can survive. Their ability to borrow has been exhausted (no more collateral) and they are going to be forced to issue more shares. Given the lack of sales I don't see the current share price changing much between now and then. To attract any sort of buying interest for the diluted shares they will be forced to significantly discount the price. You can do the math yourself (just assume an offering price and then subtract offering expenses) and see what kind of dilution is going to be required to raise even three million dollars which might carry them through the end of the year. In addition to everything else they will have a loan and interest obligation that needs to be repaid next fall of 1.1 million dollars Overall not a pretty picture.
Wow. If a purchase of 100 shares will move the price more than 18%, just think what a 1000 share purchase would do? You better double down before it's too late.
We are getting hammered here. It looks like the share offering is definitely going to be sub $4.00. The price is getting attractive here but not sure whether to buy pre or post offering. It seems to me that the share price is going to be dramatically affected by what Willis plans to do with the new money. If he has an attractive acquisition lined up the price should sore if not.............. It would seem advantageous to the stock price to talk about those plans now. is there some regulation that prevents him from doing that?
Darpa reference quoted:
Three-Phases of SBIR and STTR
Both the SBIR and STTR programs are comprised of three phases.
Phase I is a feasibility study that determines the scientific, technical and commercial merit and feasibility of a selected concept. Phase I projects are competitively selected from proposals submitted in response to announcements. Each announcement contains topics associated with stated Federal government needs. The Phase I selection process is highly competitive, with about one of 10 submitted Phase I proposals receiving awards.
Phase II represents a major research and development effort, culminating in a well-defined deliverable prototype (i.e., a technology, product, or service). The Phase II selection process is also highly competitive. Successful Phase I contractors are invited to submit Phase II proposals as there are no separate Phase II announcements.
In Phase III, the small business or research institution is expected to obtain funding from the private sector and/or non-SBIR government sources to develop the prototype into a viable product or service for sale in the government or private sector markets.
Actually you are wrong: Quoted directly from the ARPA Guidelines " Phase II represents a major research and development effort, culminating in a well-defined deliverable prototype". DARPA is basically involved in the testing and evaluation of the SLGB product suite. There is certainly no evidence to believe that DARPA has any indication whether the technology works or whether it will provide any benefit at all. That's what all the testing is about. To make that assumption up-front is not only speculative, it is incorrect. Regarding GE: Having worked in "lockstep" with them for four years, and GE well on it's way to full production with no orders, I am "assuming" that SGLB has been left behind. What would you assume?
The Phase three objective of DARPA is to transition from the prototype stage to a viable commercial product....something SGLB has claimed to possess for more than two years now. Honeywell is not putting up the funds (sponsoring) for Phase three, DARPA is. Why wouldn't Honeywell participate it's possible that a salable product will emerge at the end of Phase three but it does not cost Honeywell anything one way or the other. GE has apparently written off SGLB and Honeywell has not made any significant purchases of SGLB technology either. I'll stick with the markets perspective of SGLB's prospects. We'll compare notes in a year or so.
"If I were Mr Cola, I would be pissed that my investors have so little knowledge of how this all works"
Those silly investors:....looking for sales not seminars; profit not promises; results not research; and answers not arrogance. Mr. Cola won't have much longer to be pissed, the jig is just about up!!
This might help them eke out a few more weeks of operation in Q-1. I want to see a "real order" in the millions of dollars that indicates they have been accepted as a major player before I dip my toe in again.
Kanya.
Not a sale at all but another "evaluation and testing" agreement. Yawn.
No dollar amount. I'll buy again when they demonstrate that they have achieved acceptance in the industry via a major sale to Honeywell or similar end-user.