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Fantom19, Ouch “taking over for B”...,that hurts. I’m almost offended. Not really, it was a good line and I see how someone could think that. I post the way I do because it makes me happy to know the CEO is forced to read it. And I do believe in everything I post.
That said, if I didn’t own any VTSI, I would be a buyer now. I do think it could double or triple in the short term. It has a hotter sexier vibe now than ever before. And it has had a couple giant volume up days in the last year or so. I hate the recent direct offering. It was stupid. It was lazy and reckless. If they needed the extra 17mil for a real opportunity any bank would have lent them the money for 5% IF the opportunity was real and solid. But the $6 price was a pleasant surprise.
At my peak I had over 4% of the shares.
Now I am a bit below a half percent.
And while I believe VTSI could double or triple in the short term, I am far more confident in several other stocks.
Good advice ARZ but now that I own so few shares I don’t much care.
To VirTra’s credit, they have basically forced me to go through Charlie/Matt at IR.
I have zero respect for those guys though.
I know you directed it to Utah.
My take is it is yet another example of Ferris trying to be too cute at best or perhaps too sneaky/sleezy at worst. He does that sort of crap all the time. He hints, teases, implies, etc. quarter after quarter. He gets tennis elbow from patting himself on the back. He speaks to the quality of his workforce that is sub par at best. He speaks glowingly of BOD yet every member is a yes-person.
And then at year end we all get kicked in the teeth with the reality of 5 or 10% year over year growth.
If you stuck with the stock for the next couple years you will sound just like me.
VirTra has my email blocked and will not take my calls.
We the shareholders should not have to “do research” to figure out what is going on.
Ferris reads this message board every day. Always has.
Yep, his backlog statement could have been aimed at May or even June and not the March-end number.
And Ardly, you hit the nail on the head with “altruistic”. The part that Ferris does not understand or conveniently ignore is that VirTra products would help more people if they were in the hands of more people. In other words, more sales, faster growth, would benefit society more than slow and steady wins the race.
VirTra is EXACTLY the same as Fonar, FONR. Very sad.
I had also read your recent email and I haven’t a clue (hold your jokes!).
Switching subjects....
If you take Ferris at his word, the direct offering was simply VirTra taking advantage of the crazy reaction to the Q4 report.
At the time I thought no way was that the case but now I am starting to think that is all there was to it. The $6 offering price suggests it was as Ferris said, VirTra being opportunistic. Had igg the been prearranged no way would the sharks have agreed to the $6 price. The biggest thing that suggests this was not the case is the 159mil volume day as it suggests prior knowledge of the direct offering by those who bought the shares. Because it took time and thought and planning to schedule and pull off the big volume day.
The irritating thing with VirTra and it’s CEO is that he could clear up every aspect discussed on this board. He chooses not to because he does not care about shareholders AT ALL. In fact his own actions suggest he doesn’t even care about his own shares. Why dilute himself? Why bring questionable person like Sabby into the mix? Why list his own shares for sale in the S3?
Again, the fundamental problem is a CEO who is still patting himself on the back for saving the company 20 years ago and one who would seemingly rather grow at 10% per year than 50% per year. And worse than all this is a CEO who would rather pick the shiny red apple at the top of the tree than the shiny red apple on the low hanging branch.
I truly hope for my own sake that Ferris had struck gold with some sort of whale contract but I doubt it. Someone with time to kill should make a chart of employee count verses date. I think it would leave us all depressed.
I admire the effort you put into your posts and your attempts to quantify the numbers. That said, I think it is an impossible task due to lack of info.
For example....It is unclear how VirTra counts a STEP “order” in their backlog. My guess is “they don’t”. Simple as that.
Another metric VirTra should publish each quarter is the number of systems that shipped and their estimate of previously completed and active installations. This alone would increase their market cap by 50%. My guess is they don’t because they like secrets and competition is hurting sell price. Margins remain stable due to all the “hidden” STEP orders in my opinion.
I said what I said about laying another egg because now with 10.75mil shares rather than 7.75mil the bar is higher and share price can drop much more quickly.
I’m also sick of the stock. Not sure why I still care. Much easier to make money on deep value reversion to the mean stocks (like SUP and UVE).
Interesting how the volume has dried up.
Interesting how zero posting on stocktwits, ihub, yahoo finance.
Remarkable that the stock hasn't cratered on this lack of interest or at least drifted lower.
Q2 report in 2 1/2 months will tell the tale. If he lays another egg then its over. If he announces $10mil with great eps then its game-on.
I guess I answered my own questions. 2 1/2 months til we hear something. Why should anyone care now?
...and clearly moving up!
15 by Christmas?
Rather remarkable this remains so low.
Keep ion accumulating!
I am adding lots of shares today. It is being confused with a different company.
Regained NYSE compliance.
More insti coming on board.
The steady March up continues!
It is fun to read everyone’s speculation. Will be interesting to see how and when and who it plays out.
But I caution you all to remember who our CEO is. If someone walks up to him and says “ Would you rather grow at 10% per year each year for the next 7 years. OR. Would you rather grow at 50% per year each year for the next 7 years?”
His answer would be 10%.
It finally reversed today. Next leg up coming for RFP. Lumber is the base, pulp the frosting.
In your opinion, is VirTra likely to exceed $8mil in revenue in Q2?
What sort of Q2 revenue are you expecting?
For our CEO, it was a bullish cc.
People must be paying attention as the stock is reacting ok.
But this really focuses attention on the Q2 report.
Gonna be $12 or $2 after it.
You hit the nail on the head utahstock12. Ferris has spent his entire career with one tiny little company. If only he had had a few stints at a few really big top tier companies. He does not have any idea that there are a few all stars available for hire and if you get one they are truly priceless. All stars are rare. I have worked with less than 10 over a 20+ year career at 3 massive top tier companies. But even if you don’t get an all star, the next level down is still spectacular but even those sort of people are rare.
The CEOs lack of experience and inability to hire and manage optimum people is killing the company. Even the BOD is populated with 3rd or 4th rate talent with the possible exception of Richardson. But in my opinion even Richardson is terrible as a director since he is not holding Ferris accountable.
I developed and helped sell $100,000 to $300,000 systems for 8 years of my life to government, drug companies, schools, universities. It was heavy semi-customed engineered equipment. Often took city council, bod apprvls, etc. in order for someone to issue a PO. It took education, hand holding, dinners, demos, etc. Same stuff VirTra must do. Sales cycle from first approach to customer to shipment of product was often over 1 year. We had one dedicated sales guy from the start. He was truly the best of the best and had freedom to operate. He had two marketing people at HQ and several of us on the engineering team would help as well on occasion.
You are right, the first week nothing, the first month nothing, by the 5th month we had an identified pipeline of possible orders and were
actively working many customers in parallel. By month 6th we started getting an order or two and built and built and built. By the end of year two we were on an annual run rate of $10million and by year 4 were shipping $30million per year. And I lead the team that developed the product from a clean sheet of paper to first shipment in less than 2 years.
Where I am going is this. The guy that lead our sales effort I offered to CEO Ferris on a silver platter. CEO Ferris REFUSED to even talk to him. Had CEO Ferris hired him, VirTra would EASILY have over $200mil in sales this year. He would have started at VirTra 4 years ago.
Our CEO would not know top tier talent if it sat in his lap.
Yes, the backlog sucks too. It is $16million. Absolutely pathetic yet again.
Don't be stupid. Look at Q1 revenue from 2 and 3 and 4 years ago. Last years was off the charts low.
Ferris needs to be pushed. One good aggressive self-motivated sales rep could EASILY sell two V300 systems EVERY SINGLE WEEK for ever and ever. That is 100 systems per year which is 25mil dollars. Yet the entire VirTra organization including maybe 10 to 20 sales people can't sell even half of that?
What is wrong with your Sales Organization?
What is wrong with the CEO's leadership?
Where is the BOD? The entire BOD needs to be sued for not holding the CEO accountable and for not representing shareholders.
Even the analysts, every question will be LAME.
Probably not, the 8cent eps might keep it in the 4s.
Let’s hope the big boy owners of 3mil shares force Ferris out. Lemons from lemonade yet again.
Too funny! All the new bag holders now know what the rest of us have gone through for years.
At least now the stock revisits the 3s.
I suspect your guesses are about perfect on revenue and Eps.
Stock reaction will be interesting no matter what it is. Even if it stays flat that too will be telling. The reaction tomorrow will further explain what happened the day after the Q4 numbers.
I like your passion but today’s “news” was not even news. It literally took me 30 seconds to research it and see it was simply a request for quote and not a order. Within 1 minute I had opened the attachment and looked at the equipment list and came to the conclusion it is maybe a few million bucks at the most. Nice Yes but just a normal sort of potential order.
If I could figure it out in a minute, professional money managers and such also did so in seconds.
Yet there were enough people ready to pull the trigger to result in astounding volume. Those people are still out there and ready to pile in. Just need real news.
My personal opinion, if I were a betting man, would be that the BIG catalyst will be the Q2 report in mid-August. But again, no way would I be out of the stock between now and then. Today illustrated again how the stock can go from 0 to 60 in 2seconds.
I understand what you are saying but my opinion is the exact opposite of yours. I found today's VTSI stock trading action to be incredibly bullish. It tells me that VTSI is like a pile of extra dry pine needles just waiting for a spark to ignite.
Over 1.5million shares traded! That is about 15% of outstanding shares and about 5X the avg volume of the last week or two. And why? Because VirTra is likely to get a decent (but rather run of the mill) order from one of their best known and biggest customers. Hardly a surprise.....yet there are so many new eyes on the company and stock that it is treated like a surprise.
When we do get real tangible game-changing news, VTSI will make Ardly's long term targets look like chicken feed. I would sure rather be an owner of lots of shares going into Monday evening than sitting on the sidelines waiting for a lower price.
Because our CEO would rather deal with interviewers on balconies at night in Miami. Or questionable characters like Gomes and Sabby rather than main stream network opportunities that are seen by many and have a bit of respect. Our CEO seems to shy away from the spotlight. Nothing wrong with that except he does need to shine the spotlight on the company and take every opportunity to promote it. He does not seem to want to do it. In my opinion this company will never get BIG with this CEO.
Just think.....if VirTra called up their local ABC NBC FOX and CBS stations and said “hey, we will spend the day with one of your reporters and cameramen and show you what we got here at HQ, run you through our V300, show you our curriculum, etc”. Each of these networks would do it in a second.
But you know who will be the one likely to say No? Yep, our CEO.
Take a look right now at the job postings on VirTra website. 8 different ones. A couple interesting ones. It would appear they are spending $18mil like drunken sailors. Or maybe employees are quitting or being terminated at high rates. Or ore oar, maybe they are truly growing quicker now than their historic 10% to 15% annual rate. So many possibilities.
The reaction to Monday’s Q1 report will be interesting.
Seems obvious they will crush the year ago number.
Seems obvious they will beat the analyst consensus.
But will that be enough?
Or will the stock get pounded down if they report $5mil or $6mil in revenue without an upbeat forward outlook?
My guess is the stock will go up a lot if revenue is over $7mil and down a lot if revenue is below $5.5mil.
ditto on the cha ching!
He is too busy reading stock and social media message boards to actually focus on and do his job in an optimal fashion. If the BOD knew how he spends much of his time, they would fire him in about 3 seconds.
You are right about that!
I once stood in the midst of a V300 and the bad guy had a female hostage. He had his left arm around her neck and a gun in his right hand pointed at her head. Her body shielded most of his.....but not all. So because I knew it was just a fun “video game” for me I decided to go for it. I aimed for his right elbow and pulled the trigger. Shockingly that is where I hit him and he went down and the hostage was free.
Earlier in the school shooter scenario I was shot by the active shooter. He popped out of a doorway on my right and I didn’t see him in time. The shock delivered to my lower right back by the VirTra threat fire system took me right down to one knee and momentarily took my breath away. Very impressive.
But I gotta say Iin real life if I point a gun at someone the decision has already been made to shoot to kill. How on Earth can they reprogram a lifetime of training? With more training I suppose.
There is always risk in owning a stock.
If lumber were to crash to sub $700 then RFP goes down hard.
But pulp is also a big factor that could support the stock quite easily all by itself.
And more of the same today!
It is and will keep going up
And up
And up
And up
For all the right reasons!
Wow, no offense but you sort of sound like me when I’m whining! Maybe you really are not a CEO in real life? Sort of throws my world viewpoint off kilter.
I am actually bullish on the stock cuz certain players have demonstrated their ability to take it wherever they want whenever they want. I hope Q1 is a catalyst. Otherwise Q2 will be.
10 within 5 months.
15 within 12-18 months.
Decent Q1 report tonight.
Great Q1 report this morning. Stock is a STRONG buy. It is heading to $15 over next 9 months.
$1.4bil revenue and market cap is $125mil.
Profitable, lots of cash flow, decreasing debt.
Growing market share.