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All the auto news here in the Detroit area has been good. Lots of vehicle sales, lots of hiring new personnel, sales volumes right up there to 15 million or so. Will that translate to money for ABTL? Can't really say, but we all know it should.
My gut feeling is that Autobytel usually plays the whole thing down (which doesn't do much for us and the market), but I think they'll do pretty good. I think they'll hit the 20 cent mark with moderately good forecasts. Let's hope Coats doesn't toss in some garbage or one time write-off like he usually does. We really need Lorimer or Schwartz to come back to ABTL and light the fuse on Autobytel:).
stockdoc
Up .35. Nice to see, let's hope it holds or does even better.
stockdoc
I see that the institutional holdings dropped somewhat over the last three or four days. There have been a fair number of trades as compared to previous periods, but nothing much to consider one way or the other.
stockdoc.
This is pure insanity and/or stupidity. I think it's more stupidity than anything. We've still got a bunch of buyers and sellers who don't have the vaguest idea about what the hell the difference is between market and limit buys and sells. How else could you explain these wild swings from one trade to the next.
As far as the high volume today, 35.5K shares was from one trader. Fairly high for an individual trader, but too low for an institutional trade.
stockdoc
Consider the fact too that these are post-split shares. Prior to the split, fifty thousand shares would have been a quarter million shares. It looks like the market's expecting some good results in the up-coming report.
stockdoc
I capitalized back years ago when this stock was a mover and shaker. I couldn't believe that it would take the nose-dive that it did, and got stuck with a ton of over-priced stock in a horrible car buying economy.
As far as that $7.50, well, that's what we hit when buyins.net put out that article that they did. People didn't really have any idea what it was all about but just wanted to jump on the band wagon. It happened so quickly without anything to really back the whole thing up that no one really knew what was going on. It can easily happen again.
The problem now, is that they did that 5:1 reverse split, and a lot of investors would really be reluctant to buy into the high price that came with that split. Most people would be more willing to buy a stock at a dollar than five dollars even though they know that this company did a 5:1 reverse split, imho. The other side of the argument is that more funds are able to buy a $5 stock than a $1 stock.
stockdoc
I'm glad to hear that someone's in the black (or green) with this stock. I've got a very long way to go, and I'll probably never see a break-even on this stock.
On the positive side, I see that the institutional holdings have increased about 3% if the figures are right. While that's not a definite sign that the stock will go up, at least it's something to consider.
stockdoc
P.S. $7.50 is certainly achievable without any fundamentals to back it up. It did it before.
I won't be posting here on Ihub for a while. Ihub's messing with my computers with there ad's and something else I haven't figured out yet. I get screen-freeze and have to crash computer to regain control.
stockdoc
If these people at ABTL can't get this stock over $5, they should all be fired. I figure they should be able to sell the company for considerably more than $5. Jmho
Stockdoc
It's getting very tempting to pull out of this stock and put the money into something that at least provides a somewhat guaranteed yield. Right now, it's very easy to pick up about 14%. I'll probably hold for a half year or so. If I'm losing money after that time, and ABTL management isn't doing anything more than they are now, I'm out of this stock.
ABTL management and the BOD can use someone elses money to pay their salaries and benefits. I'm not forgeting that this company's already been sued for two scandals, and with the way these people like dipping into the pile of cash they have sitting there, I get kind of nervous. Time to give some serious thought to this situation.
stockdoc
Yes, a half dozen people picked up big bucks worth of stock. Coats got 22,800 shares. That's post-split shares, I believe it's a hell of a lot more shares than he ever spent any of his own money on to own this stock. The other five picked up a lot of shares too. And it's all legal too. Autobytel's one nice cash-cow for the insiders. Screw the shareholders.
stockdoc
Three cheers for Autobytel management. Autobytel just granted a small fortune in options to management members for their spectacular achieverments. Too bad management doesn't give a crap about the shareholders and do something for us. Anybody else think they've had enough of this company?
stockdoc
From past experience, what happens in cases like this, is that a large shareholder will try to put a representative on the BOD. The representative will then try to introduce whatever plan they are interested in to the BOD and get them to follow through on it. Unfortunately, ABTL's BOD is very secretive, and close-knit and (through various rules they've initiated) may not allow any outsiders to join the BOD. This kind of keeps ABTL tied up, and closed to doing something in shareholders behalf. (Notice that salaries and BOD compensation are totally in the hands of ABTL management and the BOD...surprise, surprise)
Although I have very little hope of it happening, I would really like to see some new blood get into the game. All that money sitting there, and management won't do anything with it....well, nothing good anyways. All I can do is hope that the large shareholders start raising hell.
stockdoc
I'm looking for Coghill's e-mail address on Coghills site. Haven't found it yet, but if I can e-mail him and establish a bit of a rapport with him, I'll call him. I just want to see if he's open to discussion.
stockdoc
Geronimo, have you spoken to Mr. Coghill? If so, what did he have to say?
Not to be pessimistic, but I suspect that he doesn't know anything more about ABTL than what we've heard during the CC's.
stockdoc
Here's a couple facts and opinions that the public sees and hears when they talk to Coats:
1)Coats doesn't like having a publicly traded company.
2)Coats made a point of telling people at one of dog and pony shows that this company has only made money in about two or three years in its 13 year history.
3)Coats wants everyone else to buy the stock, but only buys some trivial amount when he's trying to crank the price up to avoid delisting.
4)Coats just continues going along with his blood-sucking BOD.
5) Coats takes close to a million a year out of this tiny company and then complains about it costing too much to remain public.
To sum things up, this company's stock doesn't need any manipulation, it's got Coats to deal with. He does more to undermine this company than all the crooks on Wall Street.
stockdoc...besides, he doesn't answer e-mails anymore.
I don't think a one time dividend would help for any more than the length of time it took to do it. After the dividend was payed out, ABTL would just go back to what it's doing now. In fact, some investors might just see it as giving in to being a failure and finding nothing better to do with the cash on hand.
I think it would be better and more long-lasting to issue a sustainable dividend instead of a one-timer.
stockdoc
When's Autobytel going to put out some good PR's about the company instead of putting out PR's about the Auto Show, who's buying such-and-such car, or some activity they're participating in. They never put out anything of any substance about the company itself. Just a lot of inconsequential PR's that never help the company.
That's Autobytel for you.
stockdoc
I agree, Coats and his gang have to get something going. Shareholder value doesn't seem to be one of their priorities. If memory serves me right, ABTL's been in the funk since Coats took over. Part of that just happened to occur when the economy went to hell, but Coats doesn't know how to get the "street" to give much credit to the company. As it stands, I'm losing an easy 15% per year that I could be making in dividends, and ABTL's really wearing thin.
The clock's ticking,and nothing's happening. I can't let that go on indefinitely.
stockdoc
In my opinion, the only reason they decided to do a buy-back was to boost the price of the stock so as to not be delisted. Having failed in that effort, they put the buy-back on indefinite hold. Just another failure of ABTL management. They probably won't buy anymore stock. That includes their ridiculous insider buying as well.
stockdoc
I wish the posting could have been optimistic, but I just don't see ABTL management doing much of anything other than collecting big salaries. Then, to add insult to injury, Coats can't even buy stock in his own company (other than that stupid attempt to show insider buying by purchasing a few thousand shares) If Coats can't even invest in his own company, why should anyone else? Maybe he should think about that before he goes out on one of his dog and pony shows.
This isn't a matter of faith or being a team-player, it's a matter of trying to make some money by good investing. As far as I'm concerned, ABTL has used up most of my good will and hope that they'll come through. All their CC's are just sounding like the old fairy tale about "the troll under the bridge" (for those of you who remember that story).
stockdoc
After all the drama that's happened over the last couple of years, mostly regarding delisting, I get the feeling that a) the market doesn't see this company doing much of anything, and, b) ABTL management is just going to be contented sitting back collecting their bloated salaries and BOD compensations.
They've got a ton of cash, can't bring themselves to issue a dividend, and can't find anything worth investing in. So, where's this company going? Probably just being contented with pulling in a few cents profit every quarter and making sure they have enough cash on hand to pay their salaries.
They did their reverse split, and here we sit at the same price as before the split. With all the things they tried to do to bring this stock up over a dollar prior to the split, no one took the bait. I just have no idea what they intend doing, if anything.
I don't want to be sitting here a year from now with the same comments and questions hoping that ABTL management finally figures out what they can do to get this company going.
stockdoc
That's been one of my major questions for the last nine months or so. When is ABTL going to see the benefits experienced by the auto makers? Expectations for the automotive industry is approximately 15,000,000 units for the year, and ABTL just sits there (80 cents presplit). They can't even make it to a dollar.
We've been told time after time that ABTL is poised to take advantage of the automotive industry's revival, and no one seems to notice that ABTL is ready, willing, and able to participate. Is is Autobytel's failure to make their presence known, or is it that the entire industry has decided that companies like ABTL are barely needed? IMHO, if ABTL doesn't pick up a lot of business this year, they're just going to be marginally profitable from now on.
stockdoc
One thing for sure, ABTL's totally uninspiring. Total boredom, and Coats seems to just be sitting around doing nothing much. I wonder if he even bothers coming in to work everyday.
The least they could do if they aren't going to help the business out is to divest themselves of our cash and hand out some nice dividends. It's our money, not theirs. This isn't just my opinion, the investment guys have asked the same question during the conference calls. Maybe that's something that the mega-priced BOD should consider the next time they have a meeting.
stockdoc
I see that Zacks is pumping ABTL again. Zacks didn't help out last time they ranked ABTL, will it help out now? Very likely not, but still it's good to see that someone out there knows ABTL exists.
stockdoc
Coats has one persons interest in mind....Jeff Coats interests. Too bad ABTL has a bunch of people milking this cash-cow instead making this company successful.
stockdoc
A question for anyone and everyone: What's it going to take to get this stock moving? I don't know if it's the management or the company itself. Nothing seems to move this stock. Based on it's progress over the last year or so, it seems like it certainly should be above a dollar presplit. It can't even make it to that and shows no signs of doing anything even near that.
stockdoc
I expected the higher volume because of year-end selling. I thought it might go down more because people are just willing to sell off and take whatever they can get.
Very little snow here in southeastern Michigan. We're in a protected pocket for the most part, but we still get our share...eventually.
I wish ABTL management would let us know what they're doing.
stockdoc
Just a few snow flakes here. We've just been getting rain and highs in the upper 30's.
Nothing but pure boredom with ABTL.
stockdoc
All you have to do is put up with the snow. I have to put up with bullets and a fair amount of snow where I'm at. Do you sell bullet-proof vests?
Check out Detroit. 352 murders this year and stiil counting. We're getting close to the New York count. The problem is, New York has ten times the population that Detroit has.
stockdoc
Want some excitement? As compared to watching ABTL stock, watching the grass grow is really exciting, and it's winter where I am. Grass won't be doing aanything for another 4 or 5 months. That's about how long it's going to take ABTL to do anything worthwhile.
Right now, it looks like ABTL stock and its management is hibernating.
stockdoc
Spartak, I hope you're right, but how are you going to get a rally when there's tax selling between now and the end of the year?
stockdoc
Hey Spartak, if I knew the answer to your question, I would be a millionaire. I would, however, suggest that you wait it out, but as I said, what do I know? Not much.
I can say, that with the price being this low, that a lot of people will be selling off to take advantage of tax deductions. Does that sound reasonable?
stockdoc
Yepp, just another ABTL-day. They have managed to increase their earnings ...somewhat. They got a Zacks recommendation, and the net results...nada, zip, nothing. Here they sit at .76 presplit.
ABTL just doesn't appeal to the public.
stockdoc
Just a little information about one of the ABTL lawsuits...in case any of you were involved in the old IPO lawsuit. Well, it only took about 13 years, and it was finally settled and paid out.
After the original plaintiffs attorneys were charged with supplying fake plaintiffs, the lawyers and judicial system gave 99% of the case away to the defendants, and promises were broken with the courts approval, the plaintiffs collected less than pennies on the dollar. The conclusions are "crime pays", if they want your money,they can take it and get away with it with the judicial systems approval.
stockdoc
Leave a thousand or so shares for me (if you don't mind). I don't have much cash handy right now, but the way this stock seems to be fluctuating between 3.65 to 4 kind of makes it ripe for picking some stock up for flipping.
stockdoc:)
With the volume being as thin as it's been, it's kind of hard to buy and sell short-term, but it's still worth a try. It's got to be better than sitting around watching this stock flop around going nowhere fast.
From what I can see, it's a fairly safe bet to buy around 3.70 and sell at 3.95 or so. If you can increase that spread, so much the better. Maybe at some time, the company might be sold off, and I may have sold off too soon, but that's a chance I would have to take.
stockdoc
There's going to be a lot of disappointed buyers selling out over the next three or four weeks. This might be the time to buy some shares if, for no other reason, than to just flip them for a thirty or forty cent gain. That doesn't sound like much, but if you're looking for a ten to fifteen percent gain, it could help out.
This isn't the way I had hoped things would work out, but management sure doesn't seem to be making much of the company.
stockdoc
I see a buy at 3.65 for 20K shares. They may intend flipping them at 3.95 or so. Don't really know.
As far as ABTL is concerned, I don't know what to say. The one thing for sure, I've lost a lot of money by sticking to ABTL when I could have put my money elsewhere.
I sure hope ABTL management knows what they're doing. They should just sell the company and be done with it.
stockdoc
Happy Thanksgiving, and remember, you'll always have turkey as long as you own ABTL.
stockdoc