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Kinda confusing post. When you say $.24 do you mean $24? You seem to be talking about a buyout price for the whole company. Has that been discussed? I thought they were only interested in selling the retail business.
In other news, the borrowing rate for OSTK shares hit 25% yesterday.
This discussion brings out a lot of the issues with securities tokens. I was reading along feeling good about getting educated when suddenly someone refers to tZERO as having been a failure. I guess I knew it wasn't a raging success, but it still took me aback a little.
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/06/22/a-conversation-with-carlos-domingo-ceo-and-founder-securitize/
Here is the relevant part. The transcript treats the mention of tZERO as inaudible, but it is clear if you listen. My insertions are in bold:
Frank Chaparro [mislabeled, it sounds like Carlos Domingo] So these few companies in the U.S. that have a license for eight years and there is only three that I’m aware of that have actually launched and are trading security tokens today. Open Finance was the first one that launched in November and they are currently trading for tokens for them issued with our compliance protocol. So they are all coming from Securitize customers. Then SharesPost. That has been doing an […] idea for a long time for private securities and then they are now moving to a security tokens that have been trading only one token, blockchain capital token, Cap token which is again issued with Securitize. And then the third one is […] [tZERO] which launch I think it’s January/February this year…
Frank Chaparro That’s been a failure, right?
Carlos Domingo Only with their own token. I wouldn’t comment on that. [laughs]
Matteo Liebowitz No comment.
Frank Chaparro Why don’t you have a comment?
Matteo Liebowitz No investment advice on this podcast.
Frank Chaparro That’s not investment advice to say that…
Carlos Domingo Subjective comment. If you want to…
MM158, that was a great article, thanks for posting it. It seems to be about a scenario where your stock account exists on the block chain. I have to admit, reading this made me realize that I don't really know what OSTK is trying to do. Anyway, the question is how do you provide the same protection against loss that normal brokerages provide. For example, what if someone dies and the heirs don't know the guy's private key. If we are talking about bitcoin, the heirs are just out of luck, right? The SEC won't let it be like that for the securities that they regulate. So, anyone, can you tell me what is exactly is the OSTK vision in this area?
Borrowing rate just jumped from 14.5% to 19.5%.
BTW, here is Schwab's helpful note:
"Income rate changes for a loaned security are most frequently due to fluctuations in the supply and demand for that security." Pretty obvious statement, I suppose.
Yeah, that is the big question. I was following and posting about the increasing rate last spring when the share price was rising. Then as now I asked the question of what does it mean? Or at least, is it good or bad. Higher rates are bad for short sellers, so that's sort of good for us longs, right? Or could it be that it looks like such an extremely lucrative short that the short sellers are willing to pay top dollar to get in? I wish I had kept track of the share price and borrowing rate and made a graph or something, but I didn't. It would be nice to see if there were a pattern of a jump in one preceding the other.
Just got a notification that the borrowing rate jumped from 10.5% to 14.5% in one step.
The interest rate for borrowing OSTK shares to lend to short sellers at Schwab has risen from 6.5% to 10.5% since 7/3. It had bounced around in the 5.5 to 7% range for two months before this. On the run up last spring it reached a high of 14%.
Did you miss Byrne's explanation of his stock sale? If so, what do you think about it?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=148886224
Clean TeQ successfully completes demonstration project for brine hardness removal in China
Tue June 18, 2019 7:40 PM|GlobeNewswire|About: CTEQF
MELBOURNE, Australia, June 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (CTEQF) (Clean TeQ or Company) (ASX/TSX:CLQ; OTCQX:CTEQF) is pleased to announce the successful completion of its hardness removal demonstration project in Inner Mongolia for Jiutai New Material (Jiutai).
The aim of the project was to confirm, at demonstration scale, the cost effectiveness of Clean TeQ’s continuous ion exchange process to remove hardness from high saline brines to increase the recovery rates of subsequent membrane systems and thus improve water recoveries for recycling and reduce the volume of polluting waste brine.
...
https://seekingalpha.com/pr/17548703-clean-teq-successfully-completes-demonstration-project-brine-hardness-removal-china
It was up nicely in the the pre-market, but at this moment it is down 12%, so lots of selling on the news. I am wondering about their financial situation. The European study involves hundreds of people and goes on for a year. How much money will need to be raised to do this, and in what manner are they going to do it?
Here is a video on the topic of security tokens. It's an interview with a guy named David Benizri, CEO of an Israeli company called Rivver. I found the guy a little hard to understand, but I think it is good to know what else is out there.
Clean TeQ commences a partnering process for its
wholly-owned Sunrise Battery Materials Complex
4 June 2019
https://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/CLQ/02111195.pdf
MELBOURNE, Australia – Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (Clean TeQ or Company)
(ASX/TSX:CLQ; OTCQX:CTEQF) today confirms that it has commenced a partnering
process for its wholly-owned Sunrise nickel, cobalt and scandium project located in central
New South Wales (Sunrise Battery Materials Complex or Sunrise).
Today’s announcement follows numerous inbound enquiries from a range of parties in the
electric vehicle supply chain in relation to both project level ownership, long-term offtake and
other financing arrangements.
Following preliminary discussions with a range of parties, Macquarie Capital has been
appointed to run a partnering process for Clean TeQ to consider divesting an interest of up
to 50% in the Sunrise Battery Materials Complex, in combination with long-term offtake.
'''
Can you share some evidence that Tesla is going to be on T Zero?
Where did you get that a senator is helping them to raise money? All I saw was that one spoke at a conference that the company presented at.
What do you mean by "do a dummy"?
It seems like the price of .000001 is too low to make any sense in an actual market situation. A possibility is that when people have shares in a stock whose value is less than the cost of a commission the broker takes them off their hands for essentially $0 and forgoes the commission. This is something I have done in the past. By assigning a non-zero value the trade then shows up in the 1099, helping people not to forget to take the tax loss.
Watching the PGA golf tournament on TV yesterday I saw a commercial for Overstock. I don't know that I've ever seen a commercial for them before, but I don't watch much over-the-air TV anymore.
Following this company is good for keeping your decimal skills sharp. You put $50 at risk (plus commissions of course). Think of it like buying a Zimbabwean trillion dollar bill - a novelty, not an investment.
Complete text of letter from Byrne:
https://seekingalpha.com/pr/17516577-overstock-com-ceo-patrick-byrne-issues-statement-recent-sale-personal-shares-overstock-com
SALT LAKE CITY, May 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
Dear Owners,
An unanticipated stir has been created this week among shareholders by my sale of approximately 900,000 shares of “founder’s shares” of Overstock.com, Inc. (OSTK) (NASDAQ:OSTK), referenced in Form 4 filings on May 15, 2019, and today on May 17, 2019. Oddly, people of whom I have never heard are writing me demanding answers regarding my timing, reasoning, and purpose in such sales. Apparently, some find it unsettling and demand answers from me about why, after 20 years of working (generally without salary or compensation), I might sell several tens of millions of dollars' worth of stock. Frankly, I had no idea that shareholders would demand explanations of why and how I might want to use my cash derived from my labor and my property to pursue my ends in life. Not once have I ever asked a shareholder for his reasons in any decision he made. Yet, given the consternation this has caused, I will give answer, to preclude further recurrence of mass vapors.
A year ago, I told shareholders that I would be making significant sales to fund a variety of projects. Since then I have invested $12.5 million in blockchain projects, approximately 2/3 of that directly alongside your company’s investments (thus, I am not only not running from eating my own cooking, I have been asking for a double helping of it). I have donated and pledged to donate approximately $50 million to charity, much of it involving education and education reform, including helping realize Milton Friedman’s vision of school choice through vouchers and educational savings accounts (a mission which I consider the civil rights issue of the 21st century), and two $5 million chairs at the Hoover Institute at Stanford in honor of professors who had remarkable influence on me: Fouad Ajami (a dear friend, may he rest in peace), and Thomas Sowell (who 30 years ago sent me some books that changed my life). Last Friday, I pledged another $1 million to cancer research (assuming the PMC hits its $60 million goal this year). And most exciting, I am working on an interesting (though as yet unapproved) $1 million art project in Birmingham, Alabama in honor of Dr. King. While I was taught it is gauche to make a big deal of one’s giving (“It counts more when no one knows you did it,” says Dorothy Byrne, Mother), such explanation has been called for by the numerous far-more-gauche letters I have been receiving. So, there it is.
As to the timing: since I informed the public of my plans a year ago, there has barely been a day where my selling of stock would have been appropriate and legal. On nearly every one of those days I have been in possession of information that would have made such a sale inappropriate (or at least, arguably inappropriate). Nor could I sign a 10b5 plan, when such signature can only be made when one is not in a position of having asymmetric information with the marketplace. Only briefly, last fall, for about a week, did I feel I was not in possession of material non-public information. Recently I made a tremendous effort to disclose all possibly relevant information in our earnings release and our shareholder meeting (the latter of which has been overlooked), so that after the meeting, come what may, I could conduct such sales. While I hate to sell at this share price while the business continues to rebound quickly, but, as you may know, for many years I did not draw a salary in my role as CEO of Overstock, and even today it’s a matter of public record that my annual salary is $100,000. As we recently discussed in our Q1 2019 earnings call and shareholders meeting that occurred the same day, the quicker-than-expected rebound towards profitability of our top-of-class e-commerce machine coupled with our Medici Ventures keiretsu companies bringing world-changing products to market has me as optimistic as ever about the future. I simply had to supplement my nominal salary with stock sales in order to fulfill personal commitments to invest personally in blockchain projects such as Medici Land Governance, along with a need to meet charitable pledges such as those outlined above.
I do not intend to ever give such an explanation again. I owe shareholders staying within the law and not making decisions based on inside information, not explanations of my life and projects outside Overstock.
Your humble servant,
Patrick M. Byrne
Overstock.com CEO defends sale of shares
May 17, 2019 9:04 AM ET|About: Overstock.com, Inc. (OSTK)|By: Clark Schultz, SA News Editor
Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne maintains that he told shareholders a year ago that he would sell shares to fund different projects after
"I simply had to supplement my nominal salary with stock sales in order to fulfill personal commitments to invest personally in blockchain projects such as Medici Land Governance, along with a need to meet charitable pledges," writes Byrne amid some questions from shareholders.
Overstock.com fell 7% yesterday and is down 73% over the last 52 weeks. In premarket action today, OSTK is showing a 2.22% gain.
Previously: Multi-year low for Overstock.com after CEO sells shares (May 15)
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3464981-overstock-com-ceo-defends-sale-shares
I've kind of lost track of this one, so I decided to see what I can find. Here is their facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/PoweringInnovation
The main activity seems to be giving away free food and drink to the locals.
On their website they have a page for "community newsletters." Here it is:
https://www.cleanteq.com/sunrise-project/sunrise-newsletter-fact-sheets/
Seems like progress is slow. Is there a better source out there for information on the status of development?
Is this what you are referring to?:
http://www.graphene3dlab.com/s/news.asp?ReportID=850413&_Type=News&_Title=Graphene-3D-Lab-joins-the-National-Graphene-Association-and-Presents-at-the...
They are presenting to an industry group in Washington DC, and a senator will be a keynote speaker.
It's interesting that the dumping of 500K shares had less of an impact on the share price than the announcement that it happened.
Dang, I would have gone as high as 0.0002. It is indeed very weird how the trades play out at such widely different (percentage wise) prices. BTW, the trades I listed were limited by the size of the "most recent trades" page on the website I use, so there were presumably some earlier trades I missed.
Wow. That's discouraging.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3464183-multi-year-low-overstock-com-ceo-sells-shares
Multi-year low for Overstock.com after CEO sells shares
May 15, 2019 2:52 PM ET|About: Overstock.com, Inc. (OSTK)|By: Clark Schultz, SA News Editor
Overstock.com (OSTK -15.1%) falls sharply on more insider sales by CEO Patrick Byrne.
Byrne sold 500K shares this week split between a sale of 250K shares at $13.33 on May 13 and 250K shares at $12.84 on May 14.
Shares of OSTK dropped to a multi-year low of $10.65 earlier this afternoon.
SEC Form 4
The chart on Etrade does show a volume of about 700k for that day.
I just decided to check on ASPT at freerealtime quotes to look for any new activity. Normally I would expect to see 2 or 3 trades spread over a number of weeks. Instead I got this:
15:11:53 0.0004 4041 OTO
15:11:47 0.0004 166 OTO
15:11:41 0.0004 2833 OTO
15:11:12 0.0004 510 OTO
15:11:06 0.0004 2357 OTO
15:11:00 0.0004 1666 OTO
15:10:45 0.0004 11816 OTO
15:10:40 0.0004 900 OTO
15:10:34 0.0004 2942 OTO
15:10:28 0.0004 3250 OTO
15:10:22 0.0004 9733 OTO
15:10:16 0.0004 1500 OTO
15:10:02 0.0004 400 OTO
15:09:52 0.0004 4666 OTO
15:09:46 0.0004 333 OTO
15:09:40 0.0004 1833 OTO
15:09:30 0.0004 3333 OTO
15:09:00 0.0004 15150 OTO
15:08:54 0.0004 6880 OTO
15:08:33 0.0004 2666 OTO
15:08:21 0.0004 3666 OTO
15:07:42 0.0004 1166 OTO
14:52:28 0.0004 154385 OTO
14:52:06 0.0001 6157 OTO
14:52:05 0.0001 1693 OTO
14:48:36 0.0001 43933 OTO
14:48:30 0.0001 6663 OTO
14:48:25 0.0001 966 OTO
12:58:08 0.000001 56 OTO
12:58:08 0.000001 8500 OTO
This is all I am able to see without going to a lot more effort. What does it all mean? Did anyone here participate in any of this?
Here is an interview with a consultant to Tzero namec Jor Law. I was a little distracted while watching it so I came away a little confused. I will plan to watch it again, but for now:
An update on the interest rate for lending OSTK shares - it has dropped to 6%. Still wondering how to interpret it, but my feeling in retrospect is that as the share price rose the demand among short sellers grew along with it. The short Interest as of 04/15/2019 is 45.6%, which seems like about what it's been.
So who is this guy then?
I have done all of my ASPT buys through Etrade. I also have a Schwab account so I decided to check if I could buy through them and it appears I can. At least I was able to enter an order. The weird thing was that it showed a commission cost of $0. Another thing I noticed, was that in my order I have more choices of order type than with Etrade. In addition to "all or none" there is a "minimum quantity" option on Schwab, which I don't see on Etrade. That would take care of the danger of getting miniscule partial fills. Of course, if the commission is really 0 then that wouldn't matter.
A couple of trades on 4/12:
04/12 0.0003 95499 OTO
04/12 0.00001 333 OTO
The interesting thing is that I had at that time outstanding orders for 50K shares at 0.0003 and 0.0006. They were both set to "all or nothing." If the 95K trade had been matched to my 0.0006 bid they would have made nearly as much money and had 45K shares left over.
Thanks for the detailed response. I had assumed that you thought Trump was somehow on the side of Overstock, part of the "drain the swamp" theme. Your comparison of Trump to Hitler is a bit tortured. Putting aside the age old debate of whether the Nazis should be counted as socialist, I think that the fact that he is "allied and aligned with Israel" makes a pretty weak argument. But I guess my real question is WTF does this have to do with Overstock.
As to Overstock's prospects, it sounds like you are not predicting any specific positive development for 2019, you just think the market is going to wake up to the long term prospects. I'm not so optimistic of this. I think they need to actually make some progress in at least one of the areas of opportunity you mention (voting, etc.).
KarlDieGlatze, can you explain where your numbers come from? Which of their initiatives do you think will provide the revenue or other news that would cause such an increase in 2019. Also, please explain what Trump has to do with anything. Lastly, unless it is your intention to compare him to Hitler, don't post "Heil Trump."
People talking about EDIG on another board!!
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=148277247
It's nice to see a little conversation. Here are all the trades so far in 2019:
04/09 0.0002 5667
04/02 0.0003 666
04/02 0.0003 1700
03/25 0.0002 1667
02/14 0.0002 176
02/05 0.0002 50000
01/30 0.0001 3333
01/29 0.0001 8333
01/25 0.0001 71666
01/18 0.0001 26500
01/15 0.0001 666
01/08 0.0001 333
That comes to 170,707 shares for a grand total of $23.29.
In the video I just linked, which is from 2017, the guy says that at that time you could borrow stock via the tzero platform at that time. Is that true? How exactly do you go about it?
Ok, I was being very lazy. I see now that Cohodes is now a supporter. Here is an old video of him praising:
I guess I don't know enough about Cohodes, so maybe you can explain. The description of the video you linked says that he pumps and dumps OSTK. So "The Cabal" that hunts down Overstock is his former friends who have somehow betrayed him? That means The Cabal is doing what exactly? On a side note, the guy obviously thinks he is making an awesome statement, but is destroying someone really a step up beyond killing them?
"Once crypto moves up so do they ..."
Unfortunately, over the last month that hasn't been the case. Bitcoin is up something like 40%, while Overstock is down about 25%.
BTW, the interest rate for lending out my OSTK shares has dropped to 9.5%.