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My ISRG is all in an IRA and I'm 52, so still working. Most of my TITXF is also in IRAs but I've been bulking up on my Scottrade TITXF position lately, hoping for enough there to retire on that for a few years instead of taking the early withdrawal penalties. On the odd chance Titan doesn't pan out big, I work seven more years and retire on the ISRG (and a few other) positions. If Titan pulls through, I'm hoping to be done in 4 or 5, live off that until I'm 59 1/2. But... one step at a time!
I agree with the "one step at a time" philosophy... but I bought ISRG at $11.65 a share, sold a little at $380, sold a little more at $460, sold a little more at $650 few weeks ago to pick up more Titan. I still have a little skin in the ISRG game because every time I sold, it jumped shortly thereafter. As SPORT penetrates the marketplace, it should provide a continual rise (with a few dips here and there, like everything), so I feel there is no harm in taking profits along the way but it should be a pretty good long term stock once it's out there. And I am considering the growth in competition as well as growth in the market.
Someone recently pointed out that a good percentage of med students going for a surgical career are being trained in robotics. That is the near future. Titan doesn't seem to be looking for the Spinal market so some of the competition isn't direct competition, but is a good example of the direction surgery is going as an industry. And Titan should be well positioned to ride the first wave of that growth process.
So hopefully, I'm walking "one step at a time" to some nice beachfront retirement property!
Apologies... was taking time off from contributing here, but I had give a BIG thank you for posting this link. Great article, re-asserting what I have believed all along.
And I got a call this morning that the rest of my order at .61 filled this morning (now up to 123K shares but thinking about settling in at 150K soon to ride it out).
Stay positive and good luck!
Is the message board here still up and running? I see no new messages since around noontime...
Thank you FlyB! This has been my line of thinking the whole time.
On PPS, I wouldn't swear we are all upward bound from here. Too much stuff to come which has nothing to do with Titan. More Brexit fallout and a possible re-vote to start, but anything can happen and some of it will. That being said, I expect a little ebb and flow in price to come but a generally upward trend. I bought as low as $.44 and as high as $1.22 so far, and put in an order for 35K at .61 this morning - only got 7K shares and it wouldn't settle back down to fill the rest. Maybe tomorrow! Or maybe never! I figure I win either way - More shares cheap, I win. PPS rises, I win. It's all good, folks.
Did RR really say we are fully funded? I assume he meant through year's end? Different project phases have different burn rates; final re-spin/mods on hardware might not be bad if we were close to FDA guidance on Human Factors beforehand, so hopefully he's right. Or maybe he's factoring some Longtai dollars that we don't know about yet. Or another source...
I've been putting some blind faith into the former ISRG crew in the marketing side but I haven't seen much of their Titan work yet. I'd love to see what they have planned for a product rollout. SAGES was a nice start with positive feedback but that ball had better keep rolling better than Sisyphus' rock. Meanwhile, they should be keeping tabs on our conversations here as part of their job; without extraneous marketing materials being generated by them, we are a big part of their marketing for additional investor input (don't underestimate your personal value to the company merely by chiming in here). New investor are the target market at this stage. Surgeons and hospitals are not the target market for another year. I assume they know this.
I have to say I'm not feeling the doom and gloom that several of you are expressing. Looking at what has gone into the product to date and the visible results, they have been doing more thing right than wrong. Management change will certainly bring risk but it could make them stronger than if there were no change, and they are far enough into this program that they understand their needs in a replacement. They already have a strong contingency of ex-ISRG folks who found the treasure at the end of the rainbow once before. There is experience on the team to get there again and most of them know what they're doing. I'm seeing this as all good when it plays out. I sold 75% of my remaining ISRG stock on Wednesday and have the cash waiting in the account for more Titan. If that many of you really want to bail out now, I'll thank you in advance for suppressing the price further before I drop my last sizeable investment into this.
-Long and getting stronger!
Burn rate is $34M to get through this year? I thought last year they were burning $12M/month! 2017 budget is anyone's guess.
Thanks BK! I know nothing of Plexus specifically, and have limited ability to poke around the web here at work. Nice to see the vote of confidence from GE. The reassurance is... reassuring!
Not meaning to besmirch Plexus - they likely have capacity, They should be hungry for work, and hopefully some of their award-winning staff from 12 years ago are still there to help Titan. But our PPS doesn't appear to show a strong vote of confidence in this announcement. Is Titan paying them with cash or stock or both?
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29880696/tech-layoffs-more-than-double-bay-area
Plexus cuts 207 jobs at MFG facility in Cali. How are they doing? They too are publicly traded as PLXS. I assume we will be doing some research!
I know, just coincidence, but an interesting one... ISRG is trading at approximately one thousand times Titan's share price. With one quarter as many shares outstanding.
I, too, wish to express my appreciation for those who can attend the AGM and represent our best interests, and hopefully extract a little more useful information. Frankly, I am relying on their experience and good judgment because my forte is in the medical device realm, but not the investment side of it. You might consider picking a place to have a beverage and compare notes afterwards - maybe wear nametags with your iHub ID so you'll know who you're talking to! I'd love to go if I could, just for the learning experience. Toronto should be a great city to check out this time of year, eh?
Good luck and enjoy!
Opinion 1: I'm with BelizeMe on AGM. I don't think anything major will come of it, especially pertaining to PPS. I don't view it as pessimism, just a need for patience. I'm an 88K long who picked up a good chunk of it at $0.44 so... yup, I'm long.
As for a partner for Titan... I looked briefly at prospects, top 12 med companies, and here's my 20,000 foot overview.
1. J&J - Been ruled out already.
2. GE - Mostly imaging, no irons in surgical fire and no hint of interest.
3. Medtronic - has Mazor already.
4. Siemens- lab and imaging foci; wrong market and no major leads into surgery market. Not interested.
5. Baxter - Only med/surg inte3rests are anesthesia.
6. Fresenius - Dialysis market only.
7. Philips - Foci on imaging and cardio; wrong millieu.
8. Cardinal Health - All Pharm until they bought Cordis from J&J, but Cordis to robotic surgery is quite a jump. Not a leading candidate on this list but not as far off as most of the list.
9. Novartis - Pharm only.
10. Covidien - To compete with the mother ship, Medtronic? Unlikely. But maybe about as likely as Cardinal health. I'll give them both 3 out of 10 at best.
12. Becton-Dickinson - changed order to save room for the last one. BD is pharm, lab, and supplies (needle and syringes, etc.)
11. Stryker. Not just joints any more. Surgical equipment and surgical navigation systems; endoscopic and communications systems; patient handling and emergency medical equipment; neurosurgical, neurovascular and spinal devices... (yeah, Wiki info but not inaccurate). To continue... Among their recent acquisitions in this direction, Haifa/Sightline for flexible endoscopy; Boston Scientific''s Neurovascular division for minimally invasive treatment of hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke followed by Concentric; the big news here, MAKO Surgical, who manufactures and markets surgical robotic arm assistance platforms, most notably the RIO (Robotic Arm Interactive Orthopedic System). And Berchtold too. Looking at the direction they are heading, especially with the MAKO acquisition, I could easily see Titan being an M&A target, with maybe some resource sharing going on to help ensure their success before dropping big coin to go to the next logical step in their expansion.
All this is pure conjecture based on very limited research on my part. Just a not-ready-for-prime-time shot in the dark based on research which took longer to type up than to do the research - maybe honesty is a weakness with me.
Would be interested to hear from anyone else in the know to see if this theory holds water. I'm not banking on anything in particular but among the top 12, this looked to me like a reasonable candidate. I'd give them a 7 out of 10, but much better odds at involvement than anything else on the list. And I may have been looking at the wrong list. MDDI is good but maybe they use a different set of criteria when they built their list.
JMAC!! Thank you! Excellent post!
I chime in rarely, but one of my very few comments was that we should use this board to piece together a list of comments, concerns and questions for the AGM. A little teamwork on our part could go a long way to promote our causes, which boil down to probably two major concerns: PPS and successful market launch (which requires approvals, partnering/supplier/MFG/distribution/training etc.) Random speculation hurts those efforts.
It appears at first glance as though your list is fairly comprehensive, given the nature of the forum. Please consider this to be a digital handshake from me to express my gratitude.
Meanwhile, I would like to pose another consideration for us all. This board appears to be one of the dominant formats from which any prospective investor will get a feel for the company, the product, and the stock itself. Certainly, it can be a bit of a free-for-all, with most posters sticking to issues and a few occasionally getting a bit personal, but if we really wanted to achieve success on the two concerns I mentioned above, it should start here. Naturally, we all have our opinions on management styles, and whereas we don't have all the info we would like, we are sometimes left in the dark more than we wish. Part of it is the nature of the beast, and some things could possibly be clarified if we had a clear, reliable communication path. The AGM might be used to express our request for more comprehensive and more frequent data.
But this message board is also one of the primary forums the world has to gauge the company, the product, and the stock when deciding whether or not to invest (and if so, how much). To the outside world, we are a reflection of the face of the company itself. When we get petty or hyper-critical en masse, you can expect to see PPS slip - our negativity scares away potential buyers. If we stay positive, focus on the upsides, maybe conjecture about the positive sides of various potential partnering scenarios (e.g. JNJ's distribution channels are solid and could get us into dozens of markets right off the bat), we just might see a fair uptick in interest from the outside world. More interest, more stock buyers, increased PPS all mean more income with less dilution for us, better fundraising potential for Titan, and a better shot at seeing this thing launch while we choose which vintage bottle of Dom we want to celebrate with.
I'm not trying to be a cheerleader, but more of a big-picture team builder. Bad news happens, but when it does, let's not spin it out of control. And when good things happen, they certainly deserve our attention. We are inherently salespeople for Titan stock because people come to see what we have to say before they dive in. Maybe the pool should be a little more inviting for new shareholders.
Okay, rant over. Back on point, lets build and refine the list of AGM talking points to keep Titan's public image optimized and to keep the train on the tracks. JMAC's baseline looks to me like an excellent starting point, so thank you again.
-Stang
Pretty much true. Human Factors Engineering has a goal of keeping all persons associated with the product safe from harm. Users include surgeon, support staff, and patient. It does take into consideration the training for each person in their intended role. It also looks at the potential for negative patient outcomes which could be derived from sub-optimal design of hardware, interfaces, etc. 15 trials suggested in document as a minimum, with trials being evaluated for how well the staff interact with the device. Participants are required to be US residents and in most cases, non-employees of the company (to reduce bias). Interface has to be clear and concise enough to avoid confusion for novice users and experienced users of other devices which may do some tasks in a different way.
I rather enjoyed reading the document, which repeatedly stated that Human Factors Engineering and Usability Engineering are synonymous and will be used interchangeably throughout the document, but they always called out both terms every time.
Considering the devastation which the FDA brought to the Surgibot program, I don't really find fault with the revised schedule. It looks to me as if Titan has learned something from their competition's errors and is being proactive by working with the FDA. The new FDA guidance on Human Factors Engineering wants to see 15 monitored user "trials" in the US on final hardware. This will require training 15 surgeons, presumably some with da Vinci experience and some without, then running the HFE studies while they use the device. I presume their consultation with the FDA and their knowledge of the Surgibot situation has put them on a better track to success, albeit with a bit of re-design and hence delay. I don't blame the FDA for issuing guidance to make medical devices safer, and I don't blame Titan for reacting quickly when Trixie crashed and burned (I nickname my ticker symbols - ISRG is Izrag, TRXC is Trixie, TITFX is too off-color to print but fun to say out loud!)
I do find a three month Longtai delay to be interesting but not necessarily disconcerting. Longtai should now be thinking that with the delay, their investment will be less of a gamble for them. And getting their infusion of cash sooner than a one-year delay will benefit us bagholders/stockholders, depending on your point of view.
I'm starting to believe the biggest threat to the success of the program is us. There is a lot of chatter here about lawsuits which would have the capacity to shut the program down. I think there's an old expression about shooting off your nose to spite your face. The AGM appears to be a good forum for us (I wish I could go) to voice our opinions and hopefully receive logical, rational replies to alleviate our concerns. As a team effort, we should consider using this forum to coordinate our ideas and questions, keep a running list of ideas to present at the AGM, and those who can attend can present them at that time. We have a month to prepare for this and I suggest we use it wisely.
My two cents. Hopefully it's worth at least that much.
New poster, watched this board for years; played with these stocks for longer. 33 year of medical equipment experience, on Development and QA sides. Degrees in Biomedical Electronics, Computer Systems, Computer Science, and MS/OPM. Finally decided to become part of the conversation instead of always just eavesdropping.
Background: Bought TITXF at .44 proudly; got more at 1.80 (not so proud of that purchase at the moment but I still believe it will also be profitable) and doubled down (tripled, really) in the mid 60's. 70K plus that could have gone toward my kids' college bills, but if this works out, I can pay off their loans instead. But I bought a pile of ISRG at 11.65 in a 401K (based on a tip from my wife who now has 30 years of OR experience) so I'm happy with robotics results overall... and I'm still confident in Titan's direction because I have a decade until retirement so I can afford to be patient. Hopefully the two robotic companies will be a grand foundation for my "Golden" years. Pun intended... and on that topic...
Jack is most commonly a nickname for John. Anyone who thought to search on John Golden and Ximedica will find a Northeastern ME student who did a co-op for Ximedica ending in 2013, making him an ideal candidate for full time employment now that he is done with school. He did an earlier stint as a Shop Assistant. Check it out for yourself (GrabCAD and LinkedIn). Looks like a bright, talented young guy with a great future in robotics. So then, decide how important this "critical link" is to this program at the age of what, 24? 25? Are we prone to over-reaction on this board? Desperation? Just a thought. He might not be the smoking gun in the Verb conspiracy theory. Probably just a young go-getter who found a career opportunity in his field of interest.
But I invite all to do their own searches and their own DD. Personally, not a fan of blatant opining; prefer facts when available. If I need a cheerleader, I'll buy a "Go Titan" t-shirt for my wife. I don't check out this board for the pep talks, but there is also a lot of useful info here to pursue. I understand real facts are not always available, and I appreciate any tips I can further investigate on my own. When I read "big move in PPS next week," I think a palm reader has a better basis for such an opinion. Anyone who can accurately predict that would already be too rich to need to waste their time on these message boards. Ludicrous opinions discredit your input. People, please, let us act as a responsible, sensible team and help each other out.
BTW... Faster incisions means more risk of accidental "over-incision." A concern to any prudent FDA auditor (I've been through a few device audits - some of these folks are quite insightful with solid backgrounds in medical device development). As a QA guy myself, I am prone to skepticism and I need to explore the downsides of everything. Personally, I believe more in the upside than the downside for Titan. But with my fingers crossed. I'm trying to avoid the Conspiracy Theories (JnJ/Verb etc.) while hoping that if it's true, this will still turn a fair profit for us.
I'm truly curious if the conference call will provide useful information.
I honestly don't plan to contribute a lot here (I apologize for the length of this, my inaugural posting) but if I discover anything I feel is pertinent and well-grounded, I will happily share because I think it is to everyone's mutual benefit, and if it helps everyone on this board, it helps me as well, now being a member of sorts.
Be Well and Be Reasonable!