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Good news. It also clarifies that no BAM-1 silkworms were used for producing silk — just an effort to increase the colony size. People who thought BAM-1 silk was being produced were mistaken. The 10-K report will be out sometime in the next 10 days or so and we will see if KBLB reported any increase in their silk inventory since January.
The other thing that caught my eye was wording “… in a batch of thousands of silkworms.”
Thousands of silkworms aren’t a lot. ‘Tens of thousands’ would have been quite a bit better. With fewer than 10,000 silkworms, nearly all of the viable moths will be used to increase the breeding pool of parental lines.
They may need to push back silk production until after the next crop reproduces, somewhere around the third or fourth week in June. If that is the case, the first BAM-1 silk should become available around the end of July.
It could be the case that ‘thousands of silkworms’ was simply imprecise and the number was in the tens of thousands.
We’ll learn more down the road … the KBLB way.
Four rooms like the one shown would not come anywhere close to a metric ton of silk.
5.5 million cocoons are needed for a metric ton. If we divide that by 4, each room would have to hold about 1.4 million cocoons. What they showed doesn’t come close to that.
Sorry, No Sale.
You want my prediction? A 50% chance of hitting a buck by the end of 2023. How about that?
People can fantasize all they like about how rich they think they will be. But arguing that other investors should ‘back the truck up’ and ‘load up on shares’ because they project a multi-dollar share price ‘soon’ is a not-so-subtle way to pump the stock.
I’m just trying to keep things real on the board. Potential investors need to understand the uncertainty involved here.
Thompson was never specific about his production timeline to investors. When did he state KBLB would produce their first metric ton? How many metric tons does he anticipate producing in 2023? Show me the PR.
You can’t.
Beat on your chest all you want. I’m still going to keep reminding people about the facts and reality we live in.
Thanks for providing yet more evidence why investors are skeptical of KBLB’s claims. We have an extensive track record of broken promises and I believe that weighs down on KBLB’s recent announcements and keeps the share price from moving up much on their PRs.
Having said that, KBLB is once again at a point where they are making a serious effort to ‘scale and sale.’ My impression is that Thompson knows a great deal more about what is necessary to produce silk at commercial quantities and has considerable confidence that the outcome will (at last) be sufficient to produce meaningful quantities of silk.
In early December, KBLB still seemed to me to be floundering about with no clear path to success. Today I think there is a great deal to be hopeful for, while still mindful of the risks involved.
We will see what the future holds, the KBLB way.
Want2retire: “Since December the company has provided consistent updates showing CONSISTENT PROGRESS.”
They have certainly shown CONSISTENT ACTIVITY. In late 2019, KBLB was providing updates on their CONSISTENT PROGRESS to produce silk. Exciting times! Until things fell apart in January the next year. OOPS! We’ve gotten a few progress reports and they have been good, but KBLB has remained vague about their timeline for production and there are still plenty of chances for the KBLB train to, once again, go off the rails.
Want2retire: “WHEN products and revenues happen, likely in the next few months, the markets will take notice and the share price will rocket higher. Soon after this OTC penny stock will be trading in dollars on NASDAQ.”
IF products and revenues happen in the next few months, the markets will take notice and the share price will increase. Will it reach a dollar? Two? Five? Eight? Twenty? (Eight and twenty were among the candidates suggested recently.)
No one, including you, knows.
But the higher the imagined price, the less likely that outcome will happen in the ‘soon after’ period. As fun as the multi-dollar visions of sugarplums happen to be, let’s start off by aiming for a buck a share, okay?
According to Mojo (who is never wrong), we are only 60 days away from that benchmark. We’ll see if we reach that benchmark on his timeline. Then discussions of uplisting to NASDAQ and multi-dollar share prices will be more than idle fantasies.
Please tell me how to exploit the people who believe me. I am eager to learn this exotic technique for making money in a stock I am not actively trading.
Inquiring minds want to know!
Agreed 100%.
Several of the PRs recently strike me as follows:
1) Thompson is moving pieces onto the board for a rapid growth in silk production under the assumption that Bam-1 will prove a viable platform for commercial scale silk production.
2) Thompson is releasing PRs to attract attention to KBLB and generate the best possible share price to create a high share price baseline for a big announcement.
Although the share price may not increase following these PRs, there is less likelihood of it dropping back down.
If you think of it as a PR campaign to best position KBLB’s share price before a big announcement, his actions are sensible.
I am still projecting the earliest significant production news date in mid-June, but investors might get more production-related PRs before then.
We will see. The KBLB way.
I am completely unashamed for arguing that investors should consider selling shares before a buyout.
KBLB may be wildly successful and Thompson decides not to accept any buyout offers, but the share price hits (engaging in wild fantasy now), $20/share.
An investor needs cash to pay for their child’s higher education. Would it be okay to do that? Or are they forced into waiting until a buyout occurs?
Same story for an investor with enormous health bills? What about someone who wants to pay off their 7% home mortgage?
Telling everyone to wait until a buyout ignores all of the real-world issues investors face.
Thompson has put himself in a situation once again where he is the only person who decides on accepting or rejecting a buyout offer. Perhaps he will make a decision we all agree on. Perhaps he doesn’t.
The future comes with no guarantees … except DoD funding is a ‘slam dunk.’ Or not.
There is no way to predict if or when a buyout will occur. You believe it is likely, but it may never happen.
There are lots and lots of good reasons not to wait for a buyout. Selling before a buyout is not ‘one of the worst things anyone can do in their lifetime.’
Small correction: the Federal government has a long-term capital gains tax that runs between 0%, 15%, and 20% depending on your gross annual income level and your filing status. State taxes (if any) are on top of this. Several states that I have paid taxes in don’t provide a long-term capital gains tax rate. The income is just taxed at the same rate normal income. That may vary by state, though.
There is an additional 3.8% federal net investment tax for income beyond a threshold that again depends on filing status.
Many online share traders will allow you to prioritize the sale of shares by tax lots. If you have some short shares and some long shares, you can specify the older tax lots to sell off and wait for the shares held for less than 1 year to reach that point.
If you assume that the share price will remain stable or increase over time, to minimize your overall tax payments, hold your short-term shares until they are long-term shares; consider splitting share sales across years to increase the percentage of shares sold in the 15% capital-gains tax rate.
Shares donated to a charitable organization can be deducted at their value on the date of transfer. Suppose you bought a million shares at 3 cents/share and gave that to a University or Foundation. Your $30,000 investment could produce a tax deduction of $1 million. However, there are limits to how much of this deduction can be claimed in the year of donation.
If a buyout occurs, you will owe taxes on all of the shares bought out on the date the buyout occurs. If the buyout is to be held early in the calendar year, consider selling half of your shares in December of the previous year and letting the other half be bought out. This will reduce your overall income tax liability. For a negotiated buyout price, the share price will be slightly lower than the buyout price as the buyout date nears.
But the advice to seek the services of a financial planner is wise especially if you expect to earn a 7-figure total from your sales.
Time to market depends on if/when the first metric ton of silk appears, what dilution ratios they employ, and the kind of products they want to make.
A metric ton of silk in a 90%/10% blend makes 10 tons of material. They could spin up a limited edition hoodie in about 6 months. A limited edition silk tie would be a little faster.
Lots of uncertainty in predicting the possibilities. If Thompson makes a half ton of silk in June, we might see products by Christmas. But 18 months to market is also a possibility.
Stay tuned…
Jealmc, thanks for your clarification of breeding practices. Some new information for me.
I am pretty sure that KBLB did not take cocoons over to Vietnam. Instead, they probably took over eggs that had been cooled for transportation. The timing on cocoons would just be all-but-impossible and handling issues are worse.
That means the cocoons photographed are the first generation of BAM-1 parental lines produced in Vietnam, not cocoons from HQ sent over to produce eggs for the first generation.
It’s really hard to get a good count of the actual number of cocoons on the racks: some layers have a bunch, others very few. On the rack in the center of the pictures I counted around 560 cocoons. If we multiply that by 11, that gives a count of 6,160. If we assume there were four batches of the same size, that means a total of 24,640.
It takes a breeding pool of 40,000 to 50,000 to sustain the breeding pool and produce enough eggs for metric ton production. Only about 250 males and 250 females are needed to produce those eggs. Let’s make a conservative estimate and say that 2000 silkworms will be set aside from this generation to produce the eggs for the next one. The remainder can be cross-bred for silk.
That implies 22,640 silkworms from the current crop could be cross-bred. That should produce about 2.2 million eggs. In that case, the first crop of BAM-1 silk should be about half a metric ton. This will require about 45 days for production, meaning June 10th or so for the first half-ton of BAM-1 DS.
YMMV.
I think the average female lays between 200 to 300 eggs, not 500. Whether or not the BAM-1 parent strains produce a larger number, it’s hard to say.
These numbers should always be treated as approximations. Not every female will produce viable eggs and they don’t all lay the same number of eggs.
I’ve used 300 eggs/female in my calculations. An average number across a large pool of females (including those whose eggs are not viable for one reason or another) might be more along the lower boundary of 200 eggs/female, but the computations don’t vary that much.
Jetow: “All that said I believe we are close to production and contract news…. Won't be that long in my opinion.”
So many ways to convey the same vague idea: “coming soon.”
Heard that before. I’ve stated mid-June or early August for a while now as the date we get the first batch of Bam-1 silk.
We already have a contract. Determining the date of another is impossible without more data. But it is ‘coming soon,’ I’m sure.
I agree that it takes 5.5 million silkworms (approximately) to make a metric ton. But you don’t breed all 5.5 million silkworms.
You need about 20,000 breeding pairs to produce the eggs needed for silk and to sustain the breeding colony. Thus they only need to select 20,000 males and 20,000 females to place in the breeding cups.
I’m guessing they collect all of the hatched moths at some time, put the males from Bam-1A into one bin, the females from Bam-1A into another, take them all into the breeding room, pick out a male 1A and a female 1B, place them under a cup, and repeat 20,000 times. That gives you about 6 million eggs. 5.5 million of those eggs won’t be bred.
Again, this is how sericulture currently operates. It is labor intensive to maintain the breeding pool and distribute the eggs. This is the main reason why we don’t produce much silk in the US. Too labor intensive.
I understood your question. Are they planning to reel some of the cocoons for silk, or are they rearing them all for egg production. Since these cocoons have been taken out of the spinning racks, it’s a great question to ask.
I don’t have the answer.
I was adding new information, that even the silkworms raised for egg production can contribute something useful to KBLB.
During the mating process, a male silkworm and a female silkworm are placed underneath a cup on a piece of special material. It is easy to determine the male and female silkworms: females are much larger than males. After mating, the female will lay her eggs on the material underneath her cup. She dies shortly after laying eggs.
Because silkworms are blind, they don’t really care that things are happening in the dark.
In short, this process is part of the normal activity in rearing silkworms. All KBLB has to do is to keep the parent lines in separate rooms. As they hatch, they grab a female from one room and a male from the other, put them under the cup, and nature takes its course.
The only real trick here is that the parent lines have to hatch at the same time. The moths only live a few days after hatching. They can’t eat or drink in moth form.
Money4Nothing: “The last photo in the PR shows a huge pile of cocoons without holes. Do they pull them off the trays to let them emerge somewhere else? Or do they let them emerge on those racks.
“Or is that big pile in the photo headed for the boiling water?”
Good questions. I’ve always assumed the cocoons were removed from the spinning racks before hatching, but that may not be the case.
There are apparently a couple of methods that can turn cocoons back into ‘goo.’ This can be done on hatched cocoons and is potentially a way to use the silk in other applications. The ratio is about 150:1, but if you think of raising 5.5 million silkworms for a metric ton of silk, that still leaves you with around 40,000 cocoons that could be used for goo purposes.
Once again, thanks for sharing DD about KBLB’s competitors. Always useful to me to keep track of what they are up to.
The walls at Prodigy tended towards white as well. I don’t think these eggs are being reared at Prodigy. Would be interesting to know where they have chosen to raise BAM-1.
Not sure that it matters. The facility seems to be well-equipped for its job. We may find out more in the future.
You seem to be forgetting ‘genetic drift.’ KBLB linked eye-color and the genetic sequences for producing GMO silk together. They then selected silkworms for breeding that had the correct eye color. Unfortunately, the genetic sequences for GMO silk got lost in that selection/replication process.
It happened before. Don’t pretend genetic replication across generations is assured by biology. Simply not true, especially when messing around with the genome of an organism using gene editing tools.
I’m just trying to reduce the confusion that other readers on this board may have on these points. Nothing I am going to say will impact the entrenched misunderstandings of a number of posters here who disagree with the truth.
Rayo, I’ve made lots of assertions about KBLB’s progress based on evidence from their PRs. In a handful of cases I turned out to be wrong. I don’t believe there is a single situation where you have provided public evidence that contradicts any of the claims I have made.
Not once.
You asked: “Do you still think KBLB is only testing the parental strains or non-hybrids? They said they were testing or trialing both, but you made it about the parental strains.”
Boy this is just confused. I do not think KBLB is testing or trialing non-hybrid silkworm lines. They have pretty much abandoned their work with non-hybrid lines. Neither do I believe they are rearing any non-hybrid silkworms. Those all went the way of the Dodo bird a while ago. When you say KBLB has ‘said they were testing or trialing both,’ I’m sure you cannot provide evidence to support the fact that KBLB is currently either testing or trialing non-hybrid lines.
Last December, KBLB reported they had “completed the first pilot production test using a new two strain hybrid system.”
They called this a test not a trial. This was done with an early version of the two-strain hybrid system, likely the one that was sent over in January of 2023. What this test proved, evidently, was that the parent strains could be raised, cross-mated, and the Gen-1 eggs used for silk production.
As far as I can tell, the purpose of this test was simply to make sure that the parent lines could be bred independently; when they had sufficient parent moths, they could be cross-mated, and the resulting Gen-1 eggs could be reared for silk. Obviously there is a little bit of work to make sure that: 1) the parent lines are not mixed up after hatching; 2) the parent lines cocoon at the same time; and 3) the moths from the different parent lines can be cross-bred. Silkworm moths (especially the females) don’t live a long time after hatching, so the two parent strains have to be reared simultaneously. However, they have to be reared separately to avoid a non-cross mating.
Now KBLB reported they have begun the Spring field trials of BAM-1. The two parent-line eggs were sent to Vietnam. They have hatched and are now growing. If they have enough moths, they will cross-breed some of them at the end of this breeding cycle and retain the rest to maintain the parent line breeding pools. If they don’t have enough moths, they will not cross-breed the parent lines and instead breed males and females of each parent line with one another, preserving the parent lines and increasing the size of the breeding pool.
I have outlined my reasons for believing that KBLB is not raising the previous-generation hybrids at this time. I have admitted this is uncertain and also this claim was contradicted by a statement made by Ben.
I have taken great pains to discuss any claims made that KBLB has announced in their PRs production continued beyond the December crop. Their language is ambiguous, meaning that two different interpretations are possible. In spite of that, I believe they abandoned the early-generation hybrids because they weren’t an efficient production model AND KBLB believes they have a better production model in BAM-1.
I have admitted we cannot determine who is correct at this point. KBLB will have to provide definitive evidence, one way or the other, before we will know who is right.
In spite of all of this, you keep repeating points I have addressed and insist you are right and I am wrong. I insist that we won’t know until we have more evidence.
Call me a crybaby all you like. I simply couldn’t care less. Believe that my skepticism is guided by my greed and stupidity. I couldn’t care less. I insist on a careful evaluation of what KBLB has actually reported because I discovered a while ago that KBLB employed misleading language that encouraged inferences that were later discovered to be inappropriate. I’m not telling people things will happen ‘soon,’ I am telling people that I think we might get the first silk from BAM-1 in mid-June or early August. That’s been a pretty consistent prediction for a couple of months now.
But keep telling me it is going to happen ‘soon.’ I won’t have any idea what you mean and don’t really care.
I understand your enthusiasm. One thing I’m less than certain of: is a cotton/silk blend really what the market wants? I know that Kings has an order for $40 million and wants a blended cotton/silk fabric. Blending certainly makes a limited supply of a material stretch. It may be exactly what luxury streetwear wants.
Still, I wonder about the value of an all-Dragonsilk kimono in Japan. All-Dragonsilk evening wear. Those are luxury markets with incredible visibility and influence. Cotton/silk hoodies? They don’t carry the cachet of some all-silk blends.
Technical fabrics tend to use more polyester and nylon than cotton. There is a reason why football players aren’t wearing cotton jerseys and pants. Cotton absorbs sweat and then gets heavy and hot.
The only reason I can think of for KBLB to pursue cotton/silk blends as their first product line is: that’s what Kings wants in order to make limited-edition luxury streetwear items.
Assuming KBLB ever gets to the point where they are making large quantities of silk, I hope they can turn away from their cotton/silk blends and do more interesting stuff with their silks than luxury streetwear.
I think there are a lot of variables at play here. In one sense, the price has moved quite a bit — up from 3 or 4 cents a share to 8 or 9 cents a share.
The price spiked up to 15 cents. As best I can tell, a bunch of traders jumped in on the expectation of sensational news, or at least the anticipation that other traders expected sensational news. When said sensational news failed to materialize as they anticipated, many traders sold.
That put downward pressure on the stock and we dropped back into the 8 or 9 cent range. I can’t figure out a way to get a decent report out of Schwab.com, but my impression is that the volume yesterday was small and it has been declining over several days.
When the volume goes down, it means nobody is excited to buy or to sell — they are content to hold. Nothing wrong with that.
Most of the news we have had of late has been foundational. KBLB is reporting the steps they are laying in order to produce metric tons of silk on a recurring basis. These steps are important — if KBLB now has the silkworms capable of remaining healthy and making lots of silk. Positive news of that sort ought to increase the share price, as you suggest.
But there are a couple of negatives that weigh against KBLB and have for a long time. Past failures and a lack of transparency have made lots of investors hesitant to jump in. Dropping Spydasilk out of the latest 10-K report and putting out a PR asking for customers for cotton/silk blends were other factors that leave present and future investors a little unsettled.
Most of us on this board bought all the shares we wanted at 3 or 4 cents and don’t want to pay 8 or 9 cents for more. KBLB has to attract more investors. I believe many are waiting on more than simply foundational news.
Chart readers will be happy to explain why I am completely wrong in my interpretations, but, for better or for worse, the market has decided that the news coming out of KBLB recently is worth 8 or 9 cents.
I expect the price to stay approximately around this level until about mid-June, when we might get news about the first crop of BAM-1 DS. Might be end of July. It could rise a bit, it could drop a bit. Others are expecting news faster than that. They will be happy to explain why I am wrong in my predictions. I expect we will simply have to wait and see.
In short, I don’t expect to see major changes in the share price until KBLB announces more sensational news about large-scale production, customers, or sales. But I’m glad that news will arrive when the share price is 8 or 9 cents rather than 3 or 4 cents. The current PR campaign will be a big boon for investors if and when said sensational news arrives.
You just crack me up. Thanks for making everything about me.
ROTFL
But what about childish insults?
Do they dishonor the person who made them and/or make the person who uttered them look childish?
Once again, right on the money.
Declaring success before sustained production is always premature…
The KBLB way.
KBLB has merely been catching up on the state-of-the-art in silkworm sericulture. That is to say, Vietnam could already get mundane silkworms with the same capabilities as BAM-1. What KBLB has done is to breed the genetic sequences to produce DS into existing silkworm lines.
From everything we can tell, KBLB’s efforts to improve disease resistance in silkworms through genetic modification was a bust. They instead looked to traditional sericulture techniques to improve the viability of KBLB’s silkworms.
Nothing wrong with that, but this isn’t a solution for mundane silk production in Vietnam.
Glad I could help you understand the nuances of KBLB’s efforts.
You’re welcome.
The PR expressed the problem. If health had never before been an issue, why be worried about the health and low infection rates of the current crop?
They are taking pains to reassure investors that a past issue has been overcome.
Sorry you are having so many problems reading between the lines. Keep focusing on my posts and they should help you understand what is going on.
You’re welcome.
Past PRs pointed to multiple possible issues with the silkworms. Remember acclitimization? This points to disease vulnerability as being the most recent significant issue.
Sorry you got confused by the various vague and misleading claims put out by KBLB. Pay attention to my posts and you will better understand what is going on.
You’re welcome!
This PR reveals some useful information. First, the problem with previous strains appears to be susceptibility to silkworm disease. This is a different problem than acclimitization or genetic drift. The expert they hired appears to know how to breed silkworms for disease resistance and how to spot infected silkworms early, both useful skills in this situation.
Next, KBLB is raising the parent strains of BAM-1, not the hybrids for production. At a minimum, we should expect 45 days for this group of silkworms to grow, cocoon, mate, and lay eggs. Obviously the silkworms have already hatched, so some of that 45 day timeline has already passed.
The unknown question is: will some of the parent strains be cross-bred for production, or will they use the silkworms to increase the pool of the parent lines?
If the former, we could expect silk in about 60 days, plus or minus a week. If the latter, we could expect silk in about 105 days, plus or minus a week.
That puts first BAM-1 silk at mid-June or early August.
Being right once does not paper over all the other times you were wrong. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes: you don’t seem to have caught on to that strategy.
As for your childish insults, I know some 3rd graders who are better at insults than you. Instead of making me feel bad, you have managed to convince many on this board just how infantile you are.
They probably knew that already, but you have removed any remaining last doubts.
Guess you’re going to have to deal with a lot more crying, especially since things you believe about KBLB are frequently completely wrong.
Sorry, not sorry.
As sick as you are about my fact-based criticisms, I’m considerably sicker with people who cover over their beliefs with vague language like ‘soon’ and never admit they were wrong.
You’ve been wrong many many more times than I have. I don’t think you are done yet.
Since 2014. Can’t forget that part.
You pinky-swore that we would be BFF’s. I had I (heart) Jetow tattooed on my derrière. But I never knew how mean you could be.
Forget getting a Valentine card from me. No more sleepovers in our PJ’s.
I’m officially unfriending you.
It’s not over until the overweight female sings.
No singing yet.
Thompson did not have to mislead investors in order to succeed. If he had been more honest with everyone along the way, I think the share price would be quite a bit higher than it is now.
This was not just about Thompson making mistakes. It is about him covering up those mistakes, papering them over, pretending they didn’t happen. That’s why many investors are reluctant to trust him now.
Calling me a ‘cry baby’ just hurt me to my core. Someone, please, send another case of tissues to dry my red, red eyes.
SMH