Trending where? Strange action lately.

Congrats KiK, amazing as usual

The bottom line is finally growing. And I think the market likes the fact that there is blood monitor showing momentum.

True. A hung election would probably be bad for the markets. Uncertainty.

I vote mostly priced in, but not completely.

ASRT Anyone interested in ASRT?
It is somewhat of a turnaround play. They have a new CEO as of Dec 2020 that seems to be doing a good job, a bunch of cash, some new products on the docket, recently diluted shareholders to pay off some debt they were carrying at too-high an interest rate.
P/E 4.54
~$1 cash vs. $2.63 share price

They guided for $129M-137M this year versus $111M last year.

https://www.sidoti.com/asrt

Zynex Announces Additional Share Buyback Program

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Nov. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Zynex, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZYXI), an innovative medical technology company specializing in the manufacture and sale of non-invasive medical devices for pain management, rehabilitation, and patient monitoring, today announced that its board of directors approved a program to buy back $10.0 million of the Company's common stock. The program will commence on November 1, 2022 and is scheduled to terminate on October 31, 2023 or when the $10.0 million buyback limit is reached.

Zynex
Zynex
"We are committed to driving long-term value for our shareholders and believe that the current strength of our balance sheet presents a strategic opportunity for a third buyback program," said Thomas Sandgaard, founder, and CEO of Zynex. "We've repurchased $20 million of our common stock thus far in 2022 and an additional $10 million share buyback reiterates our commitment to creating value. We believe our consistent performance and ability to maintain profitability is not reflected in Zynex's market valuation and are initiating this buyback program as an attractive opportunity to deploy capital and return value to our shareholders."

Under the share buyback program, buybacks may be made from time-to-time in open market and negotiated purchases, effective immediately through the next twelve months. These buybacks will be made in compliance with the SEC's Rule 10b-18, subject to market conditions, available liquidity, cash flow, applicable legal requirements, and other factors. The specific prices, numbers of shares, and timing of purchase transactions will be determined by the Company from time to time in its sole discretion. This program does not obligate the Company to acquire any particular amount of common stock, and the program may be suspended or discontinued at any time, including in the event the Company would be deemed to be making an acquisition of its own shares under Rule 13e-3 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

The Company expects to finance the purchases with existing cash balances, which is not expected to have a material impact on capital levels.

Zynex, Inc. had approximately 41.6 million shares issued and 37.5 million shares outstanding as of November 1, 2022.

Market likes the latest report.

Where did everybody go? I don't understand where all the warm bodies went. The stimulus money has to have run out by now, no?

SPRS

The one big negative I see is that we currently have a supply chain issue. So people who normally wouldn't buy parts from SPRS are doing it right now because they are able to get the parts from SPRS and can't get them from other distributors or can't get them in the timeframe they would like. They are also brokering shortage buys in components which they normally do not deal in. Once this supply chain issue is resolved, then component prices could fall, and that shortage-buy situation will disappear. Companies typically prefer to source their components from large distributors rather than a small one like SPRS. It doesn't look like they are gouging customers since their gross margins haven't gone up alot, so I think they that bodes well for them. It remains to be seen if they will be able to keep all the customers they have acquired during this time or grow in a more normal environment. Also, there are new factories now being built in the US. It is going to take them awhile to come online, but when they do the competition could cause prices to fall. It's also good that they are building automotive relationships because those should stick as the automotive companies should be taking steps to make sure they aren't in this situation again. But I bought some SPRS, the supply chain problem has no resolution yet, and they have a big backlog. Current expectations to come out of the shortage situation are late 2023, early 2024, from my sources, but noone really knows.

Nice sell on Friday.

Nope

You're right, not sure why I conflated those. Maybe I was looking at FRO and DRYS years ago.

Freight rates have been falling
You can watch them here
https://fbx.freightos.com/

PCSV has a big new contract

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pcs-edventures-announces-contract-award-134600769.html
PCS Edventures! Announces Contract Award From the United States Air Force Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps


BOISE, Idaho, Oct. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PCS Edventures!, Inc., (PCSV) a leading provider of K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education programs and drone products, today announced that the Company has won a competitive bid and has been awarded a contract from the United States Air Force for their Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC). The contract allows the Air Force JROTC to purchase up to 750 units of our Discover Drones Classroom Packages each year for five years. They are not required to purchase more than one unit in any contract year after the first year. Their first purchase order is for 344 units, worth approximately $2.6 million.

Michael Bledsoe, President, commented, “I am very pleased on behalf of our employees and shareholders to win this contract. The Air Force’s first order represents the largest single order our Company has ever received. We are prepared to fulfill the contract and will begin shipping units within the next week. Ultimate fulfillment of the contract’s first order is anticipated to be late January 2023.”

Todd Hackett, CEO, stated, “This contract award with the Air Force is definitely a game-changer for our Company. If exercised fully, the contract has potential to exceed a total of $30 million over a 5-year period. I am proud of our employees who worked so diligently to win this contract and furthermore put our Company on track for major growth. We will continue going after larger implementations of our programs, and I look forward to providing our next contract update.”

For more information about PCS Edventures!, Inc., visit our website.

Company financial information and reports can be found at https://www.otcmarkets.com/.

There are competing technologies. But they aren't as user friendly. Most of the technologies that Amazon AWS creates are repackaged open source projects that they make into a managed service. Snowflake is closed source and was built from scratch to fit the cloud. It has a unique blend of column storage with clustering that other databases don't try to do, but works well for the general analytics case. You can do joins across databases, resize your data warehouse with a single SQL statement. And the storage is cheap, but you can ramp up your warehouse in computing power by spending money. So it works with how companies like to spend money. AWS is not a monopoly but has a specific set of features that is difficult to compete with, so I don't think you need to be a monopoly. I'm not going to be buying any SNOW at these levels, but it has the same price to sales as Salesforce, with better growth prospects, so it seems about right in comparison.

SNOW - I use the Snowflake database at work. It has been great for us. We've moved much of our analytics over to it. I used to be skeptical of it, but it fills a gap that no other product fills. And very sticky. We'd have a hard time moving away from it.

PGNT I've had some since the $2s Thanks, KiK. Still the same measly P/E in the 3s. They should have a bright spot with Rubicon purchase.

OT: 20% of Americans are behind on their electricity bills

I heard this yesterday and was surprised

https://nypost.com/2022/08/25/20-million-us-homes-cant-pay-utility-bills-as-shutoffs-loom/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/23/20percent-of-americans-couldnt-pay-their-energy-bill-in-the-last-year.html

If you can't pay your electric bill then you certainly can't buy an EV.

I see the list now. Seems like a bunch of shareholders who got a handout and are preparing to sell. I think they will sell.

I didn't see this. I don't totally understand it. Who exactly wants to sell? Is it Gary Atkinson the CEO and one other person? And there is some reference to warrants. Are those new dilutive warrants? This wasn't PR'd so I'd guess it is not really known about. Maybe Gary is being kicked out. Maybe he wants to diversify his wealth. Many reasons to sell, but only one reason to buy. I don't like it though.

I listened to it, not super closely, but I didn't hear anything that stood out to me. I noticed one analyst was baffled how they could increase revenues >90% and still not earn anything, but it was all those one-time charges plus inflated prices. Bernardo seemed to suggest that Sam's was the customer that accelerated their orders. Also they said something about Target, but said something vague about issues with supply of their other products. At my local Target last time I checked there were no singing machines and only a few microphones, everything else was empty on that set of shelves. They have a lot of inventory right now and on a previous call they said it was recent inventory, so I think they have the product to give to the stores.

Nice to see NILE is still buying.

CC Replay is out

https://singingmachine.com/pages/events#/

They are killing it on the microphones.
Microphones up (228%) now comprise 22% of the product line versus 12.8% before.
I was kind of skeptical of the Party Machine Microphone when I first saw it, because it is a somewhat unconventional product, but they seem to sell very well. Microphones are a much better business because the shipping costs with a karaoke machine has to be high with their large size and the store can only stock a few because of how bulky they are. But microphones fill a much smaller space and I'm guessing have higher margins, so kudos to them for developing the party machine mic (4.5 stars of 299 reviews on Amazon) and the podcast mic (4.5 stars of 4 reviews on Walmart).
The Kids Toys are now 8% of the product line versus 1% last year. I'm wondering if this is the new plush backpack microphone toy?


https://www.amazon.com/Singing-Machine-Karaoke-System-Portable/dp/B08GCYNS17/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=party+machine+microphone&qid=1661197758&sprefix=party+mach%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-5

https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Singing-Machine-All-In-One-Microphone-Black-SMM2097/812827217

For some reason I had it in my mind that NILE couldn't sell until the end of the year. Are they able to sell now?

Looks like most of the ~$1M increase in SGA is one-time. That's a positive. One customer upped their timetable to receive more product up-front and the Walmart product was an initial order. Not sure how much Walmart ordered in advance, will they need to reorder much for the holiday season? The advance order could also cause the next quarter to be lighter. Freight ends up in cost of revenue and freight costs have been coming down, so that could improve in coming quarters.

"""
OPERATING EXPENSES
During the three months ended June 30, 2022, total operating expenses increased to approximately $3,034,000 compared to approximately $2,068,000 during the three months ended June 30, 2021. This represents an increase in total operating expenses of approximately $966,000 from the three months ended June 30, 2021. The increase in operating expenses is primarily due to an increase in general and administrative expenses of approximately $949,000. There was an increase in pallet expenses, warehouse supplies and expense and temporary labor at our California facility of approximately $262,000 due to an increase in third party logistics business, a one-time project associated with the initial product set in a major customer’s consumer electronics department (see NET SALES), as well as price increases due to inflation and supply chain shortages. There was an increase in legal, professional, investor relations and stock exchange listing fees of approximately $222,000 primarily related to the public offering and Nasdaq up-listing in May 2022 (see NOTE 12 -PUBLIC OFFERING AND NASDAQ UPLISTING). There was an increase in compensation of approximately $172,000 primarily due to compensation for new members of the board of directors and officers’ incentive bonuses. There was an increase in bad debt reserve expense of approximately $151,000 related to required reserves commensurate with the increase in net sales and accounts receivable. The remaining increase was primarily due to one-time ERP system projects, increases in costs due to inflation and increases selling and administrative variable expenses commensurate with the increase in net sales."""

MICS 9.45+1.20 (+14.55%)

Perking up today.

Isn't that part of the project that was mostly finished last quarter so the $1.6 is what was left over from last quarter?

Thanks for sharing, seems reasonable.

ZYXI 9.73

I'm guessing the recent strength may be due to expectations over the new blood volume monitor.

9.31 +7% Nice move

Yahoo shows forward of 20.66

Which is kind of ridiculous. That net income will go down.

Walmart update

All the podcast mics and the party machine mics have been cleared out. Fully stocked on the karaoke machine.

CEO said most of the military contract was done in 2021. And there was some one-time in the ERP system cost that shouldn't be there. So I am expecting Q1 and Q2 to have margins more in line with last year. So I would think we would have a Q1 more comparable with Q1 2021 of .08 cents. We'll see.

VTSI A few notes from call

Looks like they bent backwards to do a good on the military contract, so that hurt their bottom line.

Not long to wait for next sets of results:
Q1 results out by Aug 12th
Q2 results out by Aug 19th

It sounded like they plan to have a conference call for these also.

Margins were lower mainly caused by pursuit of military customer.
CEO likened it to paid R&D.

2022 gross margins to improve. Military project largely complete in 2021.

Questions:


Someone asked a question about their space in Orlando
Ans:
CEO says that is the acquisition center where all the buyers are located.
All those acquisition officers are there and can come into the office there.

Regarding their technology he said that some is as the industry has and much is tech they don't have.
Law enforcement. Untapped market for this product.

Supply chain headwinds?
COVID and supply chain did hurt in 2021 in some places. Especially scheduling of when Virtra was ready versus customer was ready.

GA jumped $400K, how much to ERP?
Quite a bit of one-time impact in that quarter. Sounds like that should not be present in Q1 and Q2 results.


NDA signed on military contract so couldn't say much about the military contract. Good in positioning for future work.


Canadian market:
Virtra was winner previously of a contract in Canada. Canada could have awarded to more customers but only selected them. First order has come in. Not alot of press release. Standing offer and unique opportunity, criss-crosses every non-military across Canada. Really good future for that they are working hard on.

He was on the call.

VTSI

Stock is down because they stopped reporting. Reason for stopping reporting is because they have a new ERP system being put in and it is delayed.

They have said they will file in a few days -
"VirTra expects to file the 2021 Annual Report and Form 10-Q by August 12, 2022 and regain compliance with the Nasdaq Listing Rules."
https://www.otcmarkets.com/filing/html?id=15884266&guid=PBk-kqfiR7pKoih

They have set Tuesday, August 2, 2022 for a conference call.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/virtra-sets-fourth-quarter-full-120000277.html

Backlog has gone up alot the last couple years.

```
03/31/2022 they reported sales orders received in 2021 totaled $32.7M. Cash of $19.7M.
11/15/2021 Reported backlog of $21.7M
08/30/2021 Reported backlog of $17.0M
05/17/2021 Reported backlog of $16.1M
03/29/2021 Reported backlog of $14.6M
11/10/2020 Reported backlog of $14.4M
08/12/2020 Reported backlog of $14.3M
05/12/2020 Reported backlog of $11.3M
03/23/2020 Reported backlog of $ 9.6M

```
When they reported 11/15/2021 they said they expected most of their backlog would turn into revenue.
"Management estimates the majority of the new bookings received in the first nine months of 2021 will be converted to revenue in 2021 and early 2022."

So I expect whatever they release to be good and for them to file and resolve the non-reporting stigma.

I also hedged today with some SQQQ

I'm not sure what the forward PE is. How are you getting 8?

Zynex Rev up 18% Net Income up 19%

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., July 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Zynex, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZYXI) an innovative medical technology company specializing in the manufacture and sale of non-invasive medical devices for pain management, rehabilitation, and patient monitoring, today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022.

Second Quarter 2022 Highlights:

Revenue increased 18% year over year to $36.8 million

Net income increased 19% to $3.3 million; Diluted EPS of $0.08

Adjusted EBITDA increased 16% to $5.5 million

Completed initial $10 million share buyback and announced an additional program of $10 million

Recorded highest number of orders in Company history



Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results Summary:

For the second quarter, the Company reported net revenue of $36.8 million, an 18% increase over second quarter of 2021. Gross margins were 80% and net income was $3.3 million, a 19% increase from Q2 2021.

As of June 30, 2022, the Company had working capital of $51.8 million. Cash on hand was $26.9 million at the end of the second quarter.

President and CEO Commentary:

"In Q2, we posted another quarter of top line growth and increased profitability. Our reps are becoming highly efficient and revenue projections reflect our confidence in the sales force to produce exceptional results. The record orders we posted in second quarter will put us in a position to realize strong results in the second half of 2022," said Thomas Sandgaard, President and CEO. "Additionally, we completed an initial $10 million share buyback program and announced another $10 million program to signal our ability to drive shareholder value."

Third Quarter and Full Year 2022 Guidance:

Zynex is reaffirming its full year 2022 revenue estimates in the range of $150-$170 million and Adjusted EBITDA between $25-$35 million.

The estimated range for third quarter 2022 revenue is between $40-$43 million, an increase of approximately 20% from Q3 2021. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter 2022 is estimated to range between $7-$9 million.

Conference Call and Webcast Details:

Thursday, July 28, 2022 at 2:15 p.m. MT / 4:15 p.m. ET

To register and participate in the webcast, interested parties should click on the following link or dial in approximately 10-15 minutes prior to the webcast: https://app.webinar.net/mV4arKMJQLl

US Participant Dial In (TOLL FREE): 1-844-825-9790
International Participant Dial In: 1-412-317-5170
Canada Participant Dial In (TOLL FREE): 1-855-669-9657

I lost a bunch of money in IVFH. I met with the CEO once. He was not inspiring.