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Thanks! I'll have to save that link.
Agreed, looks like a nice gap up for the open today, but volumes on bid and ask are low... Can anyone see if there are bigger volumes behind these? I only see highest bid and lowest ask on Scottrade. Whenever I see 2500 or 5000 for volumes I assume there is a strong chance it is market makers. Is this an incorrect assumption?
Not sure where they get their information from, but I hope that last paragraph is correct regarding their "war chest of cash" being $8.9M "at this time" (yesterday).
https://oracledispatch.com/2017/10/23/titan-medical-inc-com-npv-otcmktstitxf-strong-run/
Did anyone know he was going to be on Big Biz last week? I'm glad they posted it (and glad you found it!) but it would have been nice to know before it happened; maybe we could have tuned in live.
BigT, who exactly are these "insiders"? I would have thought Titan officials would have to file paperwork showing any trades they make. Is it not a well-regulated system at that level? Maybe other than market makers having some discretionary freedoms...
It is nice to see our market cap over $100M!
It's funny how I see we are up 16% for the day (at the moment) and yet it is bittersweet because that's only half of the gain we had earlier!
Honestly I don't see a need for the name calling; I know most of our contributors can and should rise above that sort of behavior. A few names popped into my own thickhead which I thought might be appropriate, but I feel it best to restrain myself.
Myke, I'm just a QA guy in the medical device market and I have always said that the investment game isn't my proverbial bag. So please help me with this... if "they" are dumping shares, who are "they"? If it's Titan, don't they need to do some regulatory filings first? If it involves dilution, wouldn't that mean they have created another offering which requires they publicize it? Otherwise, I don't understand who is doing what, or why. If people can dump shares to suppress the price, it means they have shares to dump. If they have shares, why wouldn't they want the shares to go higher? Their stated goal is to uplist on NASDAQ which requires higher share price. You said we got close to .50 and they got scared... Why would they be scared?
I'm willing to learn from anyone, so if you can explain how your theory works, you might just gain some respect on this board, starting with mine. Without a valid explanation, I have to agree that you do seem to have an alternate agenda. But I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that you can truly enlighten me, and the rest of us, on what you really think is happening.
Congrats EIT! I hope we hear many more of these soon!
I have to agree with myke2 on this. Market cap doesn't double overnight. Look at January 3-4 this year. We opened at .25 on January 3, and hit a high of .5089 on January 4, closing at .50 exactly. It obviously takes AT LEAST two days to double your market cap.
I think it has more to do with how grossly undervalued the stock has been.
My Scottrade account put me in the green at 40 cents. At 47 cents, I am at a break even point on this stock for all three accounts combined (two IRAs and Scottrade).
When it happens for real I'll post that... Feel free to do the same; we are getting to that point where a lot of us will no longer be in the red!
"Optimal cosmesis"! I love that!
One never knows... A lot of people bought Yugo cars in the 80s even though they made the Hyundai Excel look like a Mercedes by comparison! It was just a little cheaper to buy than the Excel but some people just had to have a new car regardless of what a poor, unreliable choice it was. If Senhance's engineering and reliability is as thoughtful as the general design, they will be hiring more than their fair share of service reps!
I think some situational awareness should be applied to exercising warrants. Normally, I would personally tend to wait as long as possible to exercise warrants (if I had any!) to ensure more risk has passed and everything is further in the clear. Also, if I delayed exercising the warrants, I could use that capital to try to garner more profits elsewhere in the meantime. However (this is where situational awareness comes into play) I would also realize that with Titan, exercising the warrants sooner would actually help to alleviate the risks by providing more funding to the program when they need it most. For that reason, the safest play for warrant holders may actually be to exercise them early (like now) to lower the risk, which will also allow the PPS to rise organically sooner and further reduce subsequent risks. Risk reduction is good for any investor including warrant holders.
If you hold warrants, now may be the best time to exercise them merely to reduce risks down the road. We got a nice bump in PPS from a dozen surgeons banding together to put up $2M. Image the run we would get if warrant holders came through with another $12M on top of that! They would see immediate gains beyond what they imagined!
BigT - It still might be too early to start checking out places for our gathering... But do enjoy the weekend and good luck at the tables if you gamble! You certainly got a great start to the weekend already with today's news and share price action!
All I can say is...
58762.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=134575794
And yes, AWESOME news!
(But I think it was a pretty good idea back then.)
(And maybe they really do listen to us sometimes.)
(And yes, I know, could just be coincidence...)
http://www.fdanews.com/articles/184015-transenterix-scores-fda-approval-for-robotically-assisted-surgical-device
Cannot sell fourth arm in US. FDA only approved three arms.
Message in reply to:
they're selling the Senhance with 3 arms with the option to purchase the 4th based off their success in Europe.
And here's a TRXC long's take on the current situation.
http://www.thewallstreetfox.com/2017/10/transenterix-and-intuitive-surgicals-6m.html
I do have a few issues with this article.
He doesn't really consider the current sales environment; he is only focused on haptic feedback, and I believe one of Titan's patents is for haptic feedback so that could be a "me too" for us if it is really that important. He seems to think haptics is a viable reason unto itself for ISRG to buy TRXC.
What doesn't make sense to me is that if ISRG wanted to buy TRXC, why would they be investing millions of extra $$ into real estate? "When" they buy TRXC, they also get their real estate. Now they would have too much property in that area.
Also, if they just wanted to poach talent from TRXC, that means they understand the inherent weaknesses in TRXC's technology and/or game plan. If I worked for TRXC and thought it would be successful, why would I jump ship? Probably tons of money to be made at TRXC via employee stock options, etc. It would be a tough sell for ISRG to poach good talent unless they thought TRXC was doomed to fail.
So if ISRG thinks TRXC is doomed to fail, why would ISRG want that failed brain trust on their team? I wouldn't.
I can't find any solid rationale to back up the assertions in this article, with the possible exception of ISRG wants haptics. But then the real estate deal doesn't make sense.
Am I missing something?
And this one...
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=1753416
First paragraph... Senhance costs $1.9M??? Maybe they got a couple carts full of supplies and two years of service at the same time, so $300k-$400K of add-ons, still means $1.5 for a Senhance. Does this seem plausible? They were aiming for $500K for the system when it had four gigantic pods to clutter up the room. Less one pod and the price still tripled? I hope Titan can hold the line on their latest $1.2M projection (up from $850K they projected 2 years ago).
Selling like hotcakes in Europe! Apparently, Europeans don't like hotcakes.
ALF-X received its CE Mark in December 2011. According to this, no sales in Europe in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015...
http://whitediamondresearch.com/research/transenterix-has-shady-management-and-impractical-surgical-bots/
I don't know who White Diamond Research is or what their motivation was for writing this report, but I really don't have any knowledge to the contrary of any of their points. The report was published early 2016. I don't know why they discontinued their SPIDER system sales if they had nothing approved to replace it; that sounds like either a poor business decision based on ridiculous levels of overconfidence, or they knew it had some critical flaw which would bite them in the ass if they kept selling it. Just my guess on that.
But I would say that anyone with a great level of optimism for Senhance's future might want to look at the device's track record. Maybe Americans are more willing to have extra holes poked in their abdomens than Europeans. That's why they didn't sell in Europe. They are now in what, seven hospitals? CE mark seven years ago and already in seven hospitals. Wow. Awesome. I better invest! Here's my three bucks. I'll take one share of TRXC please, so I can retire when they sell their tenth system. In three more years.
The last update was Sept 28, a PR (SEDAR only, not even posted on their web site) saying the agreement with Columbia was signed and activity would start Q4. The agreement with Strasbourg was Aug 22, also saying they would start Q4. If we haven't heard of a system installation at Strasbourg yet, and the Columbia timeline was over a month behind them, I wouldn't be holding my breath for major news on that front for a few more weeks. Nicholson agreement was announced July 10 and the first installation was announced September 18, which was 10 weeks later. If they follow the same timeline (delivery 10 weeks after signed agreement) for each site, that means Strasbourg gets the installation around October 31, and Columbia gets theirs around December 7. However, the news could be more interesting at that point - Strasbourg calls themselves a center for "management of digestive diseases" which appears to mean they will be less focused on uro and gyn, and instead may bring a few new indications into our portfolio!
But yes, we need SOME sort of news sooner rather than later. We were on the verge of breaking through .28 a couple weeks ago and yesterday we were mired in the 24 cent range all day, lucky to close just above 25 cents. Without news, I fear we will keep trickling backwards, and teens aren't that far away.
TRXC just had major news and a good run-up because of it. This shines a nice spotlight on robotic surgery, and put the industry on the radar screen for MANY investors. Lots of them just jumped on board with TRXC at $1.50 but wishing they jumped in at 50 cents just a few weeks earlier. Those same people could have their attention briefly diverted to TITXF by any sort of press release, and they should realize they can still get in while Titan is so incredibly undervalued. We should be mugging for the cameras while the spotlight is shining! NEWS! NEED NEWS! NEED NEWS NOW!!!
What is the actual advantage of 3mm (1/8") instrumentation? Are there really surgical situations any of you docs might expect to encounter in which the 1/4" end effector diameter would be too bulky? I can only think of the "smaller incision" argument but that doesn't really apply to SPORT anyway. Is 3mm technology really better? Or will it require more work and greater attention to detail during the procedure because of smaller graspers etc.? Just curious...
And if it's better, is there any reason (maybe patents, of course) that SPORT couldn't adopt smaller end effectors? Or maybe 2mm instruments! (I feel like the guy on Something About Mary... "You know that 8 Minutes Abs?
This is gonna blow that out of the water! SEVEN Minute Abs! No, no, not 6... )
Wow, this is worse than yesterday!
Share price slipping a little, while TRXC just cleared $4 a share and ISRG is back up a couple buck as well... Meanwhile, I'm missing everything going on here because we seem to have lost the ability to write a post which can remain posted! It's starting to look like we will need to include an MMA cage with our function hall for the party in Vegas! Since we're all TITXF stockholders, I guess that means we are inherently gamblers so we can bet on some of the fights. Wait, let's vote... MMA Octagon cage or just a boxing ring?
hopefulinvest, do either of these look like potentially beneficial technologies?
http://www.omni-guide.com/technology/fmx/fmwand/
http://www.omni-guide.com/technology/co2/robotics/
Mr. McNally's "last rodeo" was Domain Surgical, which he merged with Omni last year, and these are among Omni's offerings. He certainly has experience in this realm and hopefully will see your suggestion as guidance if he isn't already exploring these as options.
So the four giant pods on the floor are now only three, and I hadn't really paid specific attention to this before, but one of those three is just the camera. Then they have the two other arms in there with what appears to be substantially much less mobility than SPORTs. I previously thought they may have had an advantage of a third or fourth arm in the surgical field (or disadvantages of cluttering the field of view and having to switch controls from one arm to another).
There won't be sales here until they can get a training program up and running in the English language. I assume a good percentage of surgeons who train on it early are already trained on da Vinci, so their only real advantages over da Vinci might be price and vision system. Does anyone know the actual pricing for Senhance? They were originally targeting $500K per system according to one article (https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/30/investors-will-have-to-wait-a-bit-longer-says-tran.aspx) which also claims da Vinci averages $1.5M per system (I hear more realistically the range is $1.8M to $2.3M) so it would be interesting to know where they really stand on price.
Their primary US training site appears to be Nicholson (haven't heard they announcing any additional sites) and folks who go there to train on Senhance might just be asking for a sneak peek at SPORT while they are there. I would suggest Titan allow it and encourage it in all cases. They should make a public spectacle of SPORT to the extent allowable by law. The contrasts with Senhance in the same building could really work in our favor if we can get people to see both.
Not worried...
Good morning all, and Happy Monday! Well, to the extent possible anyway...
Not sure TRXC has any impact on Titan. TRXC had doubled since Friday's close; bid was $3.17 per Scottrade (as of when I originally posted this; it is now $2.58; they closed at $1.46). TITXF bid and ask were + and - $.005 from Friday's close; very normal (spread a little more since this was first posted, but still in normal ranges). ISRG's ask is $10 below their close, so it looks like they might feel it more than Titan. But looking back to April 2016 (when TRXC got their big rejection letter from the FDA) there wasn't much effect on TITXF:
4/15 .71
4/18 .71
4/19 .71
4/20 .71
4/21 .6947
...
4/27 .70
5/3 .711
5/11 .703
Titan stayed stable.
That's when TRXC did this:
4/20 4.74
4/21 2.27
I don't foresee any major change in TITXF based on TRXC's news. And I almost hope I'm right because it is impossible to predict which way a swing would go... Could we get hammered down because the competition beat us to the proverbial punch? Maybe. Could we get a nice run upward because the FDA approval validates the robotic market and proves it can be done? Maybe. For now, I will be content sitting tight around a quarter per share because it's better than eleven cents. And if it runs to 50 cents because of this, that's wonderful too, but I'm not holding my breath. If not from this, we will get their based on our own merits, all in due time. Or all in overdue time, given how grossly undervalued we remain.
Side note to Wildbilly, I got your note... Will try to remain compliant! I didn't know that was such a strict requirement.
I do agree that the schedule posted in the June Short Form Prospectus looks like it should be fairly easy for Titan to achieve. They projected FDA submission Q4 2018 and approval H1 2019.
Another interesting reminder: Transenterix placed a Senhance system at Nicholson weeks after ours. They are behind our schedule with regard to development of training programs for the US market; their only advantage is that they must have some sort of training program for Europe to leverage. Also, the systems used to have four giant pods crowding the patient bed, with one little arm per pod. The FDA only approved a three-armed system for use in the US. I wonder why they had to scale it back.
The $700K in savings is like free service contracts for the first five+ years.
What does Intuitive get for a year of service? Are they over $200K/year yet?
It never seemed to be heavily publicized, like so many positive aspects of SPORT. It's as if the design specification says "Do everything da Vinci does but make everything better in some way." Smaller, lighter, easier to move, less expensive to buy, less expensive to use, better dexterity, better visualization, fewer incisions, sharper instruments, more comfortable surgeon position... I feel like I'm missing a few.
I thought Titan planned on single-use end effectors, especially cutting devices such as scissors. If I recall correctly, they anticipated the costs to be slightly less than one tenth the cost of buying a 10X use device plus the costs to clean, sterilize, repackage, etc. the ISRG devices. And the advantage of having a fresh new maximally-sharp cutting edge for every case. Total cost target was to be less than ISRG while avoiding the hassles and costs of sterile processing.
Was I imagining this, or does anyone else recall seeing or hearing this strategy somewhere? (Maybe mentioned in an AGM video?)
And they have so much to work with that would be positive press without a need to spin it to make it look good. You have to admit, TRXC are masters at polishing a turd!
Maybe it costs too much to get press releases vetted and released through their selected agency and would be deemed "inefficient" due to cost... But they have their "What's New" page on the web site which (IMO of course) would be perfect for the smaller details, and by putting a few tidbits on there, word would spread in their community of investors and the web site itself would start getting more attention.
Somebody recently posted a link to an article about tech company buyouts, and this type of phased buyout was one of the models they presented in the article.
Unrelated note... talked to my local Scottrade rep to facilitate a non-Titan trade. She mentioned that she's receives a few calls in the past couple weeks about Titan and everyone is buying. She said one is a local surgeon who has been hearing about how good it is so he decided to buy as well. If this is a trend around the country, it bodes well for the stock.
I guess it turns out to be a related note after all... News would keep us in the spotlight and keep these private buys rolling, which keeps PPS moving the right direction. I must agree that today's volume isn't what we have become accustomed to seeing lately.
Need news!
Even relatively mundane releases keep a company in somewhat of a spotlight. Look at TRXC... They announced their 100th case for that European Senhance system they sold. And they made it sound good by not pointing out that 100 cases in 8 months is not a viable business model for a hospital (12 per month or 3 per week). Yet they tripled their stock price in the last 5 months, not by being silent about what they are doing, but by presenting unimportant information or even info with negative connotations as being positive. Oh yeah, don't forget "We replied to the FDA's AI (Additional Information) request in less time than anticipated!" Wow, awesome news... which overlooks the fact that their initial submission was incomplete or insufficient, which is why the FDA needs the AI to begin with. For a company that just went through multiple submissions only to get completely shot down in April 2016, one would think they would get their act together and nail things down first pass this time. Nope, they screwed the pooch again, and somehow present it in a positive light in their PR, and get another bump up in PPS. It's all in the spin!
Why can't we do that?
Well, since the Red Sox are out of it, I can wish you good luck tonight! Never was much of a Yankees fan myself, but I turned some heads in this area back in the day when I'd say that Jeter would have looked great in a Red Sox uniform. Class act on and off the field. If I was ever rooting for the Yankees, I was really only rooting for Jeter - and never if it jeopardized the Sox' standings.
Pats fan too, but also a veteran. I felt it wasn't fair to suggest we boycott the NFL because New Englanders would be giving up something a bit more special than most areas, but once McCourty took a knee... Well, they aren't doing so great so far anyway. And MLB Player's Association came out in support of player protests. I found it rather ironic that MLB consists of the American League and the National League, but they are protesting the American Flag and the National Anthem. If they are protesting against police brutality, they should march in front of a police station. They devalue their argument by turning it into a media circus while raking in millions of dollars and claiming they don't get a fair chance.
If I get millions of dollars from Titan stock (fingers crossed, but it looks good!) I don't expect to be complaining about it like the sports stars.
One other quick question for Flenderson...
Is the name Flenderson meant a tribute to 1920's orchestra leader Fletcher Henderson? Or just coincidental?
Flenderson, I look forward to meeting you in person! It was rather insightful for you to pick up on Rebster's Manchester roots.
Tee off at 9AM? The party should just be winding down!
We had better have some damn strong Bloody Marys in the limo ride to the golf course!
Obviously not yet, but I remain confident we will get there.
I've said before that we really may owe the prior management team more genuine thanks as well. Look at the Amadeus design and think about how that could possibly not infringe on an ISRG patent somehow, as well as having very little to differentiate it from da Vinci to make it desirable, other than pricing. SPORT is a design revolution for robotic surgery, but to get there, the old management team had to throw away years of hard work and start largely from scratch. It must have been the most difficult decision they ever had to make in their lives, but we stand to reap great rewards now due to that toughest decision of theirs.
When we go to Vegas, I would suggest we consider inviting Dr. Fowler and Mr. Hargrove at a minimum, and show them the genuine appreciation they really do deserve. I agree they may have gotten in a little over their heads by last summer when the business had to make the necessary transformations out of product development and into more of a business development phase. But without them and their insightful design, we wouldn't be going to Vegas at all.
To me, about the only benefit of a buyout is investment risk mitigation, but I think Titan has already done a great job of project risk mitigation, and seem to be on a path which will continue that strategy. My personal preference is still for Titan to go it alone because I think that will maximize our ultimate returns, but I also recognize the value of risk-free money. At $10/share, I retire immediately. At $5/share, I have a couple years to go.
I would think that if not before FDA, then shortly thereafter. If Titan builds momentum quickly, they are building value quickly and making a buyout much more expensive. Also, nobody really wants to go through a re-branding process; once units are out there in the field with the Titan name, does a buying organization want to replace them, re-label them... there are additional approvals for labels on a medical device, etc.
The tally so far is probably about where I would have expected. 13 contributors so far. Most gave a range, for which I took the mean value (if you said 8 to 10, I'm using 9 for your value). Others said things like anything over 5, so I'm calling it 5. The sum of these 13 values is 94.25, so the average is 7.25. If we were to act as a unified group, everyone would vote yes on a buyout of $7.25 per share. Given appx. 400M shares outstanding with warrants, that's $2.9B.
When we did the prior exercise to see how many shares we had cumulatively, we had 50 contributors, and there have been a number of new posters here since then. I'll keep tallying the numbers if more people respond.
1.8M shares??? Dude, you ROCK! (My apologies if you are female, in which case I'll try "Dudette, you ROCK!)
Very impressive position regardless of gender!