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According to TD Ameritrade, it closed at $$4.00. I hope that's right.
I have to admit, I've never seen such a bunch of random ask's and bid's. Up, down, up, down. Don't these people ever stop for a second to see what the stock's doing and put the bids in according to what the last trade was at?
stockdoc
Money must be a heck of lot tighter than even I thought it was. I've seen trades of 30 or 40 share lots passing through. Considering commissions and taxes, that doesn't leave much of anything. You would think that they would be trying to get as much profit as they could, but they don't. It almost makes more sense to think that some investors are trying to crush any rallys.
stockdoc
Did you ever get the feeling that there are idiots out there selling ABTL? The stock goes up 12 cents and then someone comes along and asks 9 cents a share less than the previous trade price. Smart move, the stock's finally showing some upward movement and they come along and kill off the rally.
At that rate, the stock won't go anywhere.
stockdoc
Did you ever get the feeling that the shareholders are at the bottom of the food-chain? It's the shareholders money that kept this company going for the last 12 years or so.
So, what do they give the shareholders??? Nothing much but a couple cents a share in profit, and in the mean time, they're holding $12 million in cash. Doesn't seem right to me.
stockdoc
As long as Coats can collect $779,000 a year salary plus $200,000 moving expenses every year. this stock may never do much of anything. Coats is satisfied with the way things are.
Also, did you notice that the former employees posting didn't have any complaints about salaries? Normally, that's the first thing employees complain about. I get the feeling that the overhead expenses at this company are eating up all the profits from the bottom line.
stockdoc
Spartak, thanks for the posting. The chart came through this time.
I see that ABTL posted another one of the inconsequential PR's. It would really be nice to see something that made a difference for shareholders.
stockdoc
Spartak,, whatever it was that you posted for compete.com didn't come through on either of my computers. What did you post?
stockdoc
The whole thing is kind of funny except for the fact that we invested in this company. Stock doesn't trade until a few minutes prior to closing.
Spartak, that's an interesting find. Seeing what former employees think of the company gives us some idea of what's going on. It sounds like the company really needs some morale boosting and direction. Not very well run.
stockdoc
Totally crappy volume on this stock today. What's the market waiting on? Sometimes, it seems really incredible that this stock (which is known nationally) can make it through the day with so few trades. There are millions of stock traders throughout the USA, and ABTL only gets a half dozen people interested in buying or selling.
stockdoc
What I'm hoping for is a buy recommendation from a company that has some recognition, not one that very few have ever heard of and doesn't get any publicity. Of course, what really helps is a better than expected quarter with some good guidance for the future.
stockdoc
At $3.90, at least we're back to the price that the stock was the day it was prior to the reverse split. Coats has to come up with a really good quarterly results or a plan to sell the company in the near future.
On the short term, I'm hoping that one of the stock gurus come out with a buy recommendation for ABTL.
stockdoc
The stock market's open Monday. Maybe we can get some more upward action. I looked up the stock market holidays, and they don't list Columbus day as a holiday.
stockdoc
I hope management's doing something more than collecting big salaries. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not, but Coats brought up the issue of going private a couple of times.
The last company that I saw that went private didn't do much of anything for the shareholders. I don't think ABTL will try going private, but it's a possibility....a low possibility.
stockdoc
This is a pleasant surprise, at least, so far. I'm glad to see that I was wrong, and history has not repeated itself. Just keep going up, and let's see if we can break the $4 barrier.
stockdoc
Let's hope that I'm wrong about the direction of this stock. After seeing that it went down 31 cents on one day, I kind of looked like there just wasn't any support for this stock.
The way I see it, it's all up to management. The auto market's strong and on the up-swing. If ABTL can't pull in its share of the market under current conditions, they're in more trouble than I thought they were. They've been saying for over a year now that they're totally prepared to take advantage of the situation when the vehicle sales came back, and all that ABTL can make is a couple cents a quarter. Time for some drastic changes.
stockdoc
Unfortunately, history does support the idea that the stock will go up. I see it just the stock price floating around a little and going down. At some point, management has to step in and show the public that they're doing something to make this a viable business.
stockdoc
I can't say much about the feelings of funds. Most of them won't invest in anything below $5/share stock. In ABTL's case, they had to do a reverse split to get to where they are, and that's not to go over very well with funds even if ABTL gets up to $5/share.
stockdoc
This whole thing's totally absurd. We can't even get out of the $3 range. We should be up to $5 with no problem. Instead of that, we sit here losing 31 cents on small trades.
IMO, ABTL management's pretty much trashed this stock starting with their reverse split. The BOD should get rid of Coats. After that, the BOD should summarily cut their reimbursement 50%....betterr yet, quit. The company could have done far better with Lorimer or Schwartz.
stockdoc
Again, the afterhours trade happens. I wonder what's going on....maybe daylight savings time change that someone forgot about and put their order in late. In any case, no big deal.
It looks like the retired someones stock options.
stockdoc
Another day with an afterhours trade. While it's not conclusive proof of anything (only a few hundred shares trading), it is unusual and maybe an indication that better days are ahead.
At least, the stock's moving up a little.
stockdoc
ABTL's been doing some financing business in the past, but the way it looks, ABTL intends doing considerably more. They certainly need to show some big revenue increases, otherwise, we're just going to sit here with the same revenue and stock price.
Personally, I think ABTL (or someone acting in their behalf) should doing a little advertising when these "buy" recommendations come out. The world certainly finds out in a hurry when it gets downgraded.
stockdoc
One might think that ABTL could somehow make the recent buy recommendation a little more public than it's been. However, ABTL having the management it has, hasn't done anything. I guess that's hoping for too much.
Other than theflyonthewall and TD Ameritrade, I haven't seen the buy recommendation anywhere.
stockdoc
Things are back to normal today. Actually, things never did much of anything. That's ABTL for you.
stockdoc
Spartak, I bought a couple thousand more shares just in case we get a pop in the next day or two. At 3.64 (.73 presplit), I figured I can't go too far wrong. I'm not looking for a fortune right now, but even if I can turn a few thousand shares around until ABTL management decides what they're going to do, I'll take the risk. I don't like investing that way, but with the way things are going, that's about the best I can hope for. If I do flip the recent purchase, I still have my basis in case the stock keeps going up. These guys have to do something with the company.
stockdoc
Currently 17405 buy versus 500 sell. Can't beat those odds.
I suspect that some people got the news last Friday judging from the volume and afterhours purchase. The news either hasn't really been widely publicized or there's just a lack of interest.
Maybe it's time to consider buying a few thousand shares. Could be a jump in price coming up.
stockdoc
It looks like Sidoti's a legitimate LLC firm, maybe it'll get some action going today. The only place I've seen the news item is on TD Ameritrade. Should be on the Yahoo finance page sometime today.
stockdoc
Posted today on TD Ameritrade: Autobytel Started At Buy By Sidoti >ABTLLast update: 9/24/2012 11:09:22 AM
I don't have any idea who (or what) Sidoti is, but whatever it is, it's better than nothing.
stockdoc
Maybe there's still some life at ABTL. Volume up to 67K, and even an afterhours trade.
stockdoc
LOL....$12 cash....well, it could be, but I guess it's $12 million.
stockdoc
I'm still waiting for ABTL to hire some M&A company. The last time they did that, they couldn't find anyone who wanted to buy the company. Maybe now that ABTL's making some profit and has $12 cash, they can find a company willing to by them out at a nice price....Yahoo, Priceline,...?
stockdoc
You can count on medocrity. That's got to count for something. Until ABTL finds a buyer or ABTL finds some add-on businesses, they probably won't do much of anything, especially after that speech that Coats gave about ABTL only being profitable for two of the thirteen years it's been in existance.
stockdoc
They should have attempted to do something long before things got critical. They waited until their credibility was just about totally shot, and then they came out with their pathetic "insider buys" and a bunch of fluff PR's. This management's really crappy with the one exception of the fact that they bought out one of their suppliers.
Maybe they should bring in Lorimer or Schwartz.
stockdoc....."...ABTL's well positioned to take advantage of the resurgence of the auto industry." Well-positioned and still waiting.
Pre-reverse split price: now .704. And they were trying to get this stock up over a dollar. Were they joking?
stockdoc
Tumbleweed.
Spartak, this looks like a good time for you to buy if you're still in the market for some cheap ABTL.
stockdoc
That's for sure. ABTL can't just sit there year after year making a couple cents per quarter and taking in the same revenues. They have to expand their product line, and start pulling in a lot more revenue.
This new guy is from GMAC, and that says a lot.
stockdoc
Is Autobytel moving to get more auto financing business. Kind of looks that way with the new BOD member. ABTL has to do something to assist in bringing in higher revenues, maybe this is part of the overall scheme.
I don't know what ABTL management's waiting for. Are they actually doing anything or just sitting around collecting bloated salaries? They don't really have much incentive to do anything if they're getting big pay to keep things as they are.
The least they could do is to pay out some of that cash as a dividend and try to make the shareholders a little happy.
stockdoc
Autobytel has definitely turned into a zombie stock. It isn't dead, but there are no signs of life either. Maybe sometime, some month, some year, it will show some signs of life. Can we wait until then?
stockdoc