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PBKEF May Have 300% Upside Based on Acquisition
SeekingAlpha article
http://seekingalpha.com/article/299950-petrobakken-may-have-300-upside-based-on-brigham-s-acquisition
Monthly dividend for October is 1% ($0.08 at a PPS of low $8 range makes 11% divi)
NEP: Like watching grass grow in the winter. EOM.
$AERL: junket operators remain flush with liquidity: Reuters
"MACAU | Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:21pm IST
MACAU (Reuters) - A funding squeeze on Chinese entrepreneurs has not ruffled the feathers of Macau's multi-billion-dollar casino industry as their core customers -- super-rich mainland Chinese -- and junket operators remain flush with liquidity, industry executives and analysts said.
Shares of Hong Kong- and U.S.-listed gaming companies such as Sands China Ltd, Wynn Macau Ltd, Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd, Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd and SJM Holdings Ltd plunged earlier this month as fears over a heightened credit squeeze on small-to medium-sized enterprises in China hammered the sector.
The credit squeeze, which reportedly resulted in a string of Chinese entrepreneurs going into hiding to avoid repaying loans, has also raised concern of restricted funding channels for junket operators -- middle men who provide credit to wealthy mainlanders for gambling in Macau.
Kenny Leong, chief executive of Nasdaq listed Asia Entertainment and Resources Ltd, one of Macau's major VIP gambling room promoters, dismissed the concerns, saying large junkets mainly dealt with super-rich clients with sound creditworthiness.
"Right now big firms do not have such problems. This may be related to the smaller operations," Leong said, adding that smaller junkets were affected because of their more informal funding channels and less rigorous checks on customers.
AERL is one of 190 licensed junket operators in the former Portuguese enclave, an hour from Hong Kong by ferry. The junket industry accounts for 75 percent of Macau's total gaming revenue, which analysts forecast to reach $34 billion this year, more than five times the $6 billion projected for rival Las Vegas.
Analysts say Macau's junkets and casinos are better positioned to weather the current global economic uncertainties compared with 2008, when the sector collapsed along with the global financial crisis.
"Compared with 2008-2009, the difference is casinos and junkets are cash-rich. They can still drive growth in the interim by pumping more working capital into the system," said Credit Suisse analyst Gabriel Chan in Hong Kong.
Galaxy's Chief Financial Officer Robert Drake said there had been no signs of a slowdown in VIP gaming revenue, as evidenced by massive revenue booked during China's "Golden week" National Day holiday starting on Oct. 1.
"This year's Golden Week has again proven to be a huge boost to business. The growth of revenue in Macau -- both VIP and mass market -- has been strong and we have seen no signs of any recent slowdown," the CFO of the $8 billion company told Reuters.
Leong said AERL extended HK$5 billion in credit to VIPs in the first five days of October alone.
"People are saying Macau suffers from trouble in China, this is not the case," he said."
AMEX does not currently have exact standards for delisting, only for the initial listing:
http://cchwallstreet.com/AMEXtools/PlatformViewer.asp?SelectedNode=chp_1_1_3&manual=/AMEX/CompanyGuide/amex-company-guide/
"Sec. 1002. POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO CONTINUED LISTING"
"The Exchange, as a matter of policy, will consider the suspension of trading in, or removal from listing or unlisted trading of, any security when, in the opinion of the Exchange:"
...
"b) it appears that the extent of public distribution or the aggregate market value of the security has become so reduced as to make further dealings on the Exchange inadvisable;"
"the Exchange will not normally consider suspending dealings in, or removing from the list, the securities of an issuer which is below any of standards (i) through (iii) above if the issuer is in compliance with the following:"
"(1) Total value of market capitalization * of at least $50,000,000; or total assets and revenue of $50,000,000 each in its last fiscal year, or in two of its last three fiscal years; and"
"(2) The issuer has at least 1,100,000 shares publicly held, a market value of publicly held shares of at least $15,000,000 and 400 round lot shareholders."
"(f) Other Events—"
...
"(v) Low Selling Price Issues—In the case of a common stock selling for a substantial period of time at a low price per share, if the issuer shall fail to effect a reverse split of such shares within a reasonable time after being notified that the Exchange deems such action to be appropriate under all the circumstances. In its review of the question of whether it deems a reverse split of a given issue to be appropriate, the Exchange will consider all pertinent factors including, market conditions in general, the number of shares outstanding, plans which may have been formulated by management, applicable regulations of the state or country of incorporation or of any governmental agency having jurisdiction over the issuer, the relationship to other Exchange policies regarding continued listing, and, in respect of securities of foreign issuers, the general practice in the country of origin of trading in low-selling price issues."
There is no rule in AMEX to maintain 1$, NASDAQ is different.
The PPS target depends strongly on macro (China stocks are range-bound between P/E's of 1.5 and 2.5 right now) and whether any additional new catalysts come into play (the biggest one would be a DIVIDEND and another might be acquisition of a FOURTH facility down the road).
If macro-sentiment stays range-bound between cold and lukewarm, then after the Haujie facility is in full swing for four quarters - corresponding to Q4 2012 through Q3 2013 (April 2012 through March 2013), then TTM EPS would probably be around $1.20 and with a P/E of 2.5 that would equate to $3/share PPS. If LPH announces a dividend at a minimum 2-3% annualized, then expect the market to reward them with a P/E of 3.5 instead of 2.5, which would equate to a PPS of $4.20. It's to be expected that these numbers are half to two-thirds of the official RedChip price targets.
AERL SeekingAlpha article published
"Undervalued Stock with the Safety of a High Yield"
Sunday, October 16, 2011
http://seekingalpha.com/article/299841-asia-entertainment-resources-undervalued-stock-with-the-safety-of-a-high-yield
Article about market makers by a market maker
The intense bids in the last half hour Thursday were a genuine large investor loading the boat. On Friday, it was just a steady stream of different investors until the last 51 seconds. Clearly a market maker wanted to drive down the closing price so that on Monday morning it opens lower and they have a chance to cover their naked shorts that were created by selling shares to the retail buyers who were bidding it up on Friday.
Market makers hate to get caught in a short position as the price goes upwards, yet if no real sellers exist they pretty much have to generate liquidity anyway to do their job, and whatever they sell short they try their darndest to create some kind of downward movement very soon afterwards to cover their shorts lower instead of covering higher and losing money. Hence their objective in a fairly illiquid stock is to keep the price see-sawing back and forth, which is exactly why the stock is sold at a 3 or 4 cents lower price at 3:59pm than the price paid the entire rest of the day. MMs are willing to buy and sell between each other so that they can all cover lower.
Link to article:
http://shockertrades.blogspot.com/2011/05/market-maker-speaks-out-ways-of-market.html
That makes 2 days in a row with a strange close. Thursday was a big buy with seconds left followed by a much lower priced dump.
I was watching the Level 2 bid ask spread and the realtime Time and Sales history very closely Friday afternoon. Generally, all of Friday afternoon a steady stream of 0.95s were going through until 3:59pm 9 seconds before the close and a bunch of 92s and 93s went through, about 11,000 shares total. Funny how MMs save those for the close.
It kind of pissed me off because I wanted to add a bit on Friday, and I was waiting for the end of the day fade in case day traders were selling before the weekend. But I didn't see any fade happening at all, so I submitted a 10,000 share bit at a price of 0.95 at precisely 15:58pm. Well, they filled my shares 500 at 0.94 and 9500 at 0.95, then in the last 51 seconds the market makers dumped 11,000 shares at 0.92 and 0.93 in order to achieve a lower closing price to set themselves up better for Monday morning. Sucks of MM manipulation.
What might be going on is this: today the MMs sold more 95s than they actually owned, so they want to buy back (cover naked shorts) at a lower price to make a couple pennies. So the MMs intentionally sold 11,000 shares around 92 cents at the close so that Monday's opening price is lower than today's average trading price, so first thing Monday am the MMs will buy back shares cheaper. It wasn't a bad day overall, as LPH support levels are S-L-O-W-L-Y moving upwards.
correct.
$AERL: SeekingAlpha article about to be published by Drjackcar, according to him it was accepted the other day.
shhhh...don't spoil the party til Cramer says it's ok to short again!
nice timing, Bogey. You got in before 2 PRs in a row, gave a small pop there.
PBKEF: Certain economists and/or analysts predict global economy contracting, and therefore copper and oil demand should fall in the near term. The canadian oil sands is much more expensive to extract than conventional oil, so it appears the market is predicting very slim profit margins in the near term.
Analysts lukewarm on Biotech diagnostic stocks
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Biotech analysts are mixed on whether now is the time to move into stocks of diagnostic test-makers, even though many are trading at 52-week lows.
With rare exception, most diagnostic stocks have lost 10% to 40% of their value over the quarter, with Alere Inc.’s stock leading the downward spiral, down 42% on Thursday, followed by Response Genetics Inc., off 33%.
Other names sliding at least 10% include Sequenom Inc. +1.17%, Vermillion Inc. -4.48%, Genomic Health Inc. +2.10%, Cerus Corp. -0.47%, Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. +0.79%, EXACT Sciences Corp. /+0.45%, Myriad Genetics inc. +1.14%, Quest Diagnostics Inc. +1.73%, NeoGenomics Inc. -4.55%, Gen-Probe Inc. -0.25%, and NeoProbe Inc. +2.66%. One striking exception is Cepheid +4.18%, shares of which have been bid up 15% largely on takeover speculation.
A key reason for the decline is fear that worsening economic conditions will result in fewer and fewer patients undergoing diagnostic testing because they’ve either lost their insurance coverage or can’t afford the co-payments, according to Oppenheimer & Co. analyst David Ferreiro.
That fear has been further stoked by growing speculation that Republican lawmakers will soon move to repeal the federal health-care reform act, which had been expected to bolster sales of diagnostics by providing more Americans with health insurance coverage.
Link:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/biotech-analysts-lukewarm-on-diagnostic-stocks-2011-09-29?link=MW_Nav_NV
Macau analyst: strong Sept., recordbreaking October
"September Looking Strong for Macau Casinos, October Expected to Be Record Breaking -Analyst"
TheStreet Insider: 9/27/2011
"Analysts at Deutsche Bank commented on Macau gaming stocks Tuesday, noting that strength continues in September...While month-to-date is strong, they would not be surprised to see daily run rate slip into the end of the month as junket operators curtail capital to prepare for the upcoming Golden Week holiday...Deutsche Bank continues to expect year-over-year gross gaming revenue growth come in within the +40-45% range."
This is very positive for AERL.
Link: http://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/September+Looking+Strong+for+Macau+Casinos%2C+October+Expected+to+Be+Record+Breaking+-Analyst/6813763.html
IRIS catalyst: mgmt. should publish sales projections
It would be an immediate catalyst for investor sentiment if IRIS's management were to publish some sales targets for the short-term and the medium-term (e.g., 12 to 18 months).
Based on the fact that the immunoassay might be priced between $1300 to $2500 per assay, an annual sales targets in the range of $500,000,000 to $700,000,000 may be quite plausible. Simple marketing and math is what is needed here, along with a good sales campaign.
Does $500,000,000 to $700,000,000 as an annual sales target sound like a realistic medium-term number, especially considering FDA has approved their immunoassay and 217,000 new prostate cancer cases occur every year, with over 30,000 dying per year?
Insurance companies who don't want to pay for chemo when it is not necessary would be very likely to reimburse providers for an effective immunoassay test so each patient's treatment can be optimized. A success rate of 78 percent for predicting cases that will spread versus 93 percent for cases that will not spread should be music to doctor's and insurance company's ears.
IRIS has a laboratory already in-place to perform immunoassay tests and immunoassays are relatively easy to scale up to production levels, so with good marketing to doctors and insurance companies, this test could and should be able to reach about half of the patient population over the next 12 to 18 months. Long term there will be over 200,000 new patients to test every year plus a percentage of previous patients that might be appropriate to retest at certain intervals.
AERL: RCTs soon; bottom of trading range. EOM.
OT: Petrobakken 10% dividend oil play.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/286232-petrobakken-energy-is-poised-to-prove-itself
They have recently implement enhanced fracking and it shows much greater recovery. Some of their competitors have done the same thing. Several people familiar with the Canadian fracking companies think there performance could be stellar. Morningstar rates them a 1.6 (Buy).
I'm in for a small position, this is legit north american beaten down oil play and with a very attractive PPS, dividend rate, and production increase.
OT: Petrobakken 10% dividend oil play.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/286232-petrobakken-energy-is-poised-to-prove-itself
They have recently implement enhanced fracking and it shows much greater recovery. Some of their competitors have done the same thing. Several people familiar with the Canadian fracking companies think there performance could be stellar. Morningstar rates them a 1.6 (Buy).
The only mention on I-Hub I found was a post by 2MorrowsGains on the IHub ValueMicroCaps board.
Even if VIE restrictions only apply to new stocks, I would expect some downdrafts to the sector during the week that the news outlawing new VIE listings is announced, although not extreme.
Lebed:NEP - pump Lebed:LPH -- imagination
NEP's movements have always confounded even the best traders. So while it's movement on a single pumper out of the blue who doesn't have company-specific news developments is quite surprising, given that NEP generally defies all predictions, I'm not surprised. What would surprise me however, would be NEP continuing to move much higher without a pullback as 50 percent in two days invites a little profit taking or shorting.
LPH: Day traders jumped in 2 days before the 10K and afterwards sold the news. While the traders' consensus is that acquisition will be an even bigger catalyst, there won't be any warning beforehand when the deal closes, so longs will get the bigger pie on this next spike upwards.
Meanwhile, the knowledge that the deal is pending very soon is providing a nice stream of volume for LPH.
Bets on VIX won't pay off longterm:
Article: "Bets on the Fear Index Scary for Most Investors"
http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/strategies/bets-on-the-fear-index-scary-for-most-investors-1315936692449/?link=mktw
"Because of how the funds are designed, it is also difficult to make LONG-TERM gains betting on fears of volatility. Consider that the VIX was recently at 43, up from 27 a year ago. Yet over the same period, an investor who bought and held the iPath ETN would have lost 55%. That is because if volatility rises or even stays flat, the underlying options contracts get more expensive"
T-R1: Are you reading this?
LPH catalysts in place:
1) 10K net earnings exceeded targets by about 10 cents per share.
2) Fraud risk is gone with the 10K out. Deposit money in escrow for acquisition has been verified and matches the amount of free cash that was used from earnings over the last few quarters.
3) 81 percent downpayment on Haujie facility speaks for itself on the timeline not taking a long time until closing the acquisition deal, which will be HUGE for LPH. It is approaching 3 months since the last downpayment and the end of September net earnings will be in the ballpark of what is needed to close the deal.
4) LPH track record puts their money where their mouth is regarding a proven track record -- LPH executed a stellar earnings increase after they completed the Gujiao facility acquistion in late 2009. Expect the same things to begin to happen very shortly with the Haujie facility acquisition, which is considerably larger than Gujiao.
Mgmt said the right things on LPH CC.
Huge YOY increase in 2011 was largely due to Gujiao facility that was purchased in late 2009 and ramped-up beginning in second half FY 2010.
Management intends to close the acquisition ASAP but by end of the year.
Management is putting all cash to use to close on Huajie facility and after that to fill the tanks and ramp-up sales.
Toups is on top of investor concerns and indicated after Huajie is taken care of the board of directors is willing to talk about dividends, but not until then. Toups said they had talked to the big 4 auditors and none of them want to take on new Chinese clients at this times due to problems in the sector. They have also talked to next tier down of auditors. Toups does not think a reverse split will do any good for LPH and I agree with that.
LPH beats estimates by Marek on YMB by $0.10/share
LPH legit because: (1) 10K earnings to be released before Wednesday's earnings conference call so auditor risk goes away for a long time; (2) Almost nil short interest so there is no profit in anyone trying to write a hit piece; (3) CEO Cai Yongjun has strong ties to military so he will keep his nose clean to get more acquisition deals in the future; and (4) Pending closing of acquisition in Q2 and large cash deposits on acquisition have been paid entirely from the last 3-4 Qs of earnings, which has been analyzed to prove that their net earnings from each quarter are real.
Expect a pop before earnings and very strong support after earnings through the next 2 months anticipating the acquisition closing, which will increase their net income by 40 cents per share.
LPH: RedChip said 10K to be released B4 CC Wednesday: auditor risk is not an issue now, clear sailing from here until the acquisition closes. Acquisition will bring FWD P/E = 1.
LPH: conference call for 10K earnings- looks like audit risk is gone!
CEO - was just downgraded by Jeffries from target HKD 14 to 13, it'll be there when it hits $167 USD PPS
Joe, generally I agree with you except for the Eurobank wild card, which if it suddenly imploded as badly as the US banks did in 2008 would take us down another 20 percent in 3 days. However, I think all the big players in Europe are really watching their cards carefully to say and do things that will keep the injury level to merely steady bleeding rather than an abrupt death.
LPH: playing devil's advocate here:
Based upon the track record of many other RTOs, it was way too easy to answer this YMB poster's question about what could be wrong with LPH's valuation.
"(1) Is the deposit (in the seller's bank account) fake?"
Answer: If there is collusion between the seller and LPH (i.e., bribe or past relationship), the seller could mistate balances on deposit and bribed regional bank officials could lie about deposited funds or whether funds were reloaned to third parties.
"(2) Is the inventory (the live blood of oil wholesalers) fake?"
Answer: Product levels have been faked before in this industry - oil is lighter than water and auditors do not crawl inside tanks.
"(3) Is the earning power (the company issued an update last month) fake?"
Answer: Many RTOs have falsified/inflated customer revenues, ranging from intercepted letters from auditors to bribery
"(4) Is the tangible assets (buildings, hardwares, softwares) fake?"
Answer: Some RTOs have claimed assets which upon further inspection of official PRC filings they do not actually own or else paid much less than claimed
"(5) is the intangible assets (license, connection with authorities) fake?"
Answer: The license is probably real, but the question is are they really raking in the cash and does LPH actually own all of the cash or could there be other third parties who own part of those products such as Taiyuan Trading Company, who may have a separate and independent stake that shareholders are not aware of.
"Even excluding the advance to the suppliers, cash on hand, and account receibles, the company is worth several times more that the current stock price. Is that not ridiculous?"
Answer: In cases of proven fraud, share price drops to levels commensurate with investors willingness to invest, the market is what it is.
I got the AERL divi in my account too, even though I sold soon afterwards.
Blue lights tomorrow, but would buying the third dip be worth more than a one-day bounce play?
I'm glad that this board tolerates all views and opinions.
Moderators: Thanks in advance for allowing this post to remain up.
Macroeconomic effects dominating stock market now. For the next few months, no matter how low of a price you buy a CGS, the amplified selloff in US markets will have a much stronger correlation with share price movement than any company specific trends. Whenever world/US news is negative, stocks without a positive news will selloff without any specific reason, and those stocks with major catalysts - such as acquisitions or impressive earnings, will see those PPS spikes completely erased within days due to the current macro climate.
CNBC article predicts that markets won't stop a downward trend until the final debt deal is worked out...hold your breath, errr, I mean wallets until then.
A solution that will restore confidence is a LONG way off since Congress seems diametrically opposed on how to solve those problems. IMHO, all federal programs are soon to be cut in a major way. The US watches Europe and sees its own future in the mirror, so stocks are going down and anti-spending activism is going up. Oddly enough, the one workable solution that won't kill too many domestic jobs, which is to severely cut overseas spending (military, other overseas aid), the budget cutters won't even consider of cutting off paying for 700 bases to babysit in countries that had wars 40, 50, or 60 years ago. Somehow, that is supposed to be a priority over education and jobs here in this country.
The top 2 percent pay taxes on income, capital gains, social security, and medicare/medicaid that total up to less than 20 percent of their total income due to the ceiling structure of taxes on the latter elements, yet the middle class's total tax burden averages over 30 percent. Lobbyists are well funded to make sure that any tax reform won't upset this upside down tax triangle. This is also going on at the state level.
Massive government spending cuts are soon to happen that will decimate Federal jobs and contracting from highway and transportation departments, drug, food, and environmental programs, and higher education assistance. At the state level, similar actions are also taking place.
These spending cuts will put millions of additional middle class citizens out of work, greatly increase unemployment, erode the tax base, and skyrocket public school college tuitions. PA just increased in-state tuition 17 percent this fall. My son is no longer going to school as he cannot save fast enough to keep going and I cannot risk NOT saving fast enough to have a few pennies in my pocket when, not if, I lose my job in 6 months to a year as this "trickle-down" job loss impacts every sector.
I might sound a bit bitter, but that is only because I have lost well over a quarter million to the shorts and unethical China Stocks this year, and have just now lost about 50 percent of the pittance that was left to the high frequency traders currently manipulating the major markets.
I made a similar post over on China Growth Stocks, which I am absolutely sure will be censored and removed because it conflicts with the view of the major traders there.
This morning I also got a Pal Talk instant message from a moderator that they are not going to tolerate any talk that is politically motivated starting today. However, what that means is they won't tolerate dissent from the pro-low taxes on the rich views that are being posted hourly on Pal Talk.
Mods: please let this post stay up as it does not represent a bash, a mindless pump, or a personal attack. It represents a view of the forces at play in the markets now, and I am advising caution in playing CGS because of how this sector tends to react in an amplified way relative to the US markets.
Macroeconomic effects are dominating stock market now. For the next few months, no matter how low of a price you buy a CGS, the amplified selloff in US markets will have a much stronger correlation with share price movement than any company specific trends. Whenever world/US news is negative, stocks without a positive news will selloff without any specific reason, and those stocks with major catalysts - such as acquisitions or impressive earnings, will see those PPS spikes completely erased within days due to the current macro climate.
A CNBC article predicts that markets won't stop a downward trend until the final debt deal is worked out...hold your breath, errr, I mean wallets until then.
A solution that will restore confidence is a LONG way off since Congress seems diametrically opposed on how to solve those problems. The US watches Europe and sees its own future in the mirror, so stocks are going down and anti-spending activism is going up. Oddly enough, the one workable solution that won't kill too many domestic jobs, the budget cutters won't even consider (i.e., closing 700 bases to babysit in countries that had wars 40, 50, or 60 years ago). Somehow, that is supposed to be a priority over education and jobs here in this country.
The top 2 percent pay taxes on income, capital gains, social security, and medicare/medicaid that total less than 20 percent of their total income due to the ceiling structure of taxes on the latter elements, yet the middle class's total tax burden averages over 30 percent. Lobbyists are making sure that any tax reform won't upset this upside down tax triangle. This is also going on at the state level.
Massive government spending cuts are soon to happen that will decimate Federal jobs and contracting from highway and transportation departments, drug, food, and environmental programs, and higher education assistance. At the state level, similar actions are also taking place.
These spending cuts will put millions of additional middle class citizens out of work, greatly increase unemployment, erode the tax base, and skyrocket public school college tuitions. My state just increased in-state tuition 17 percent this fall. My son is no longer going to school as he cannot save fast enough to keep going and I cannot risk NOT saving fast enough to have a few pennies left in my pocket when, not if, I lose my job in 6 months to a year as this "trickle-down" job loss impacts every sector.
CHOLY up +7% only 2 hours after I closed out my HK position.