While one would think so, because it would make sense, the reasonable or logical thing isn't always done. My guess is they don't because that would be chilling for the punditry etc. They only rate them by the number of followers and viewers, not performance. For sure those guys who were telling us that netflix and Amazon were just fads and to wait for 20 dollar google, would have garnered devastatingly low rating if there ware such a ranking system. Too bad no one seems interested in creating a performance rating. Oy vey!!!

Well, now that's how critical thinking works:

1. Man runs hedge fund giving investors advice.

2. Advice doesn't work, yet the adviser makes lots of money.

3. It has to be obvious that he isn't taking his own advice!

4. If you're not making money with his advice, then why is he giving it to you?

5. If 1. thru 4 is true, then he has to be doing something else, other than what he's pretending to do, which is give investors usable advice.

So, one must conclude that he gives advice that enhances his ability to make money doing the exact opposite of what he tells others to do.

The answer is to go back and follow him and observe what would happen if you did the exact opposite of what he says to do. If that turns out to be the case, then he is using investors not informing them.

I believe that doesn't include the GM sales that happened lately.

Metal fabricators will evaluate these machines and probably purchase more sooner or later. Obviously hobbyists aren't going to either buy or need industrial production machines, while on the other hand, many things that are now commercially produced in plants, will begin to shift over to individual users, like for instance silverware. As consumer level users discover that silverware is often in demand by restaurants etc., they will begin to fill this need with highly customized small production runs. Thus industrial mfg's will become more focused on cookware and larger pieces that the smaller users can't produce.

Hobbyist will probably learn that they can create income by making smaller kitchen pieces and dinnerware, once things like that take hold the shape of industrial production will begin to change, but it will take a while before small makers are producing enough volume or have enough customers to impact industrial mfg.

Multiply that by any other item you can think of and you can see that in each field it will take plenty of time for any impact to be felt by industry. But that still means that industry has to pay attention and be ready to change as the landscape changes or they're toast. It's a very complex mix of "if's and's and but's" and that means it's impossible to predict what the next direction will be or how fast things will move there. All we can do is guess that they eventually will move in the direction of the cheapest most flexible and efficient methods available. Which is why I figure this stock is a long term hold. No one can predict when the next step or steps up will happen, how fast or how large they will be or even where.

But, one cannot deny that it is exciting technology and that it bears constant watching by industrial and private users.

While those numbers are small, consider: If you had a machine shop, you purchase raw metal stock; rods, sheets, billets and such. Then you machined them as required, meaning you needed a lath, a milling machine, grinding an polishing wheels and plenty of cutting heads. If you were a hobbyist, and you cast your own metals, you needed a high temperature kiln and a room to operate it in. All of which is high skill, dangerous and expensive as well as labor intensive.

A 3DP, on the other hand, requires none of these things, nor the skill or the labor, it delivers the finished part. So the question facing the user is; several machines and the skills to use them or a 3DP'er. So that's how these printers are going to wind up selling by the score, since there are a large number of people already working with metals in machine shops, repair shops and maintenance room across the globe. My guess is that people will first try the service bureaus to see what kind of quality they can expect on the cheap. Once they're satisfied they will seek to have their own 3DP's. Obviously a mere few hundred machines is hardly going to satisfy a global demand. So, expect these numbers to increase very rapidly at some point in the near future.

In the first ten or so years of the personal computer, when installing and running programs became as easy as pointing and clicking, sales went from a paltry few dozen to thousands, as offices learned how much time and effort, was cut from preparing documents and retrieving data, and the storage of files. So many man hours and expenses were cut from the data handling stream, that no one could be competitive using the old manual systems. Of course, the "old manual systems" were comprised of tens of thousands of typists, ten key adding machines and huge pools of skilled operators. The computer rapidly shrank those pools and the expenses that went with them.

While 3DP is going to actually grow the number of people who are capable of producing objects and parts. So, use may not grow as quickly as the computer did, because the computer was cutting cost already in place. 3DP will gradually make more people aware that they can make parts and things, without so many skills and so much expensive equipment.

Meanwhile the industrial outfits need to get ahead of the curve, or see themselves fall victim to a spreading entrepreneurial environment that will first remove the easy work from their balance sheets. So they must discover ahead of the public, what work they will still be needed to do, and plan to shed the work that anyone will be able to do.

So, it's a long road ahead, but the upward curve will very rapidly grow steeper and steeper for quite some time to come. In these early years the word "competition" means little to nothing.

The market, when adjusted for float size, appears to be pricing both SSYS and 3DS about the same. Despite the fact that 3DS has paid a stock dividend and diluted to do M&A. Thus, it appears to me that 3DS is able to carry a heavier load than SSYS and still retain a value equal to SSYS.
Just my take on it.

As far as I can see, SSYS has a higher share price due to the fact that it's float is about half or less than 3DS. But 3DS appears to be more active and we've gotten a stock dividend of 3 for 2 forward split. Avi was able to raise cash for M&A using shares, that kept the company debt free and able to be more aggressive. While, it seems to me that SSYS went very heavily into promoting consumer market wares.

In any event, it will take time to tell what the future actually holds, there are no metrics that can point the way ahead for new technology that is just in the stage of garnering widespread adoption. Right now metals seems to be key, probably because of the high costs of producing precision parts by traditional means. Metals require high cost machine tools to work them.

Yes, SSYS isn't bad, I just don't buy the way they're selling it as the industry leader that will totally trash 3DS. They're going overboard with the rhetoric, I feel, because they need to get 3DS holders to sell off, or there won't be enough shares to cover their shorts, in which case, as they try to cover at any price level the prick would skyrocket and leave them in ruins.

Yep, you can always tell when someone is new to investing, they pay attention to paid shills in the media, even when they say the most questionable things. Remember they kept telling us how 85 dollars for Google was too rick a price to pay? How we should wait to pick it up in the twenties (hahaha). Netflix and Amazon were just fads and Tesla had a "cult following". Bash, bash, bash, and promote stocks headed for the trash heap to get the big guys in or out at the best prices while sending the small investor into the trash heap of life.

People who speak to millions of people never have any useful information to impart. If they did, every one would be wiser, healthier and happier, and that's never going to happen, because that not their job. Their job is to misinform the public enough so that the insiders and the people who pay their salaries get the best chance at reaping any rewards to be had. Their game is to bolster their credibility by telling you about things that have already happened, in such a way as to make it seem like a prediction on their part. Normally you won't be concerned with their offers, so you will be guild into thinking "Hey good thing I listen to the news casters". But when the big test comes, deciding how to handle your investments, that's when you discover how harmful they are.

Over the decades I've been trading I've seen them talk the masses out of many a stock that zoomed up and into stocks that plunged into bk. Oh and don't mention the scandals, where these pundits and such were caught taking payola to push and trash certain stocks. I don't believe they ever stopped taking payola, what I think is that they just find new ways to manage it better and stay just this side of the law.

DO YOUR OWN DD AND THINK FOR YOUR SELF.

If something sounds fishy, your best bet is that it is a ploy arranged by someone with an interest. We little guys have only these boards, the big guys have control of "The News".

I always like the fact that 3DS didn't put to much into the consumer side of the biz, like SSYS did. It's long been obvious that the consumer market isn't ready for prime time, it will be years before consumer sales amount to much of anything. Industrial printers is where the action is.

The 150 M line of credit with an option to increase it by 75 M more, is extremely good news in the market. Of course, some would think otherwise, but the market has a perverse way of seeing things.

A company without debt is thought to be planning to used dilution in place of credit needs, because, it's detractors will say, they're avoiding bank loans because the balance sheet and metrics wouldn't withstand the scrutiny of "hard nosed" bankers.

Thus, many savvy public companies open large unsecured credit lines, even though they don't need them and may never use them, as a way to show their credibility/creditworthiness. Thus, it's hardly a wonder that today's trading was to the upside, as this kind of news. gets investors on the sidelines. to come off the fence.

That's "Lonnie" not "Loonie" a typo I''m sure.

The guys over on SA board are patting themselves on the back for predicting that the stock would go down. But they've done their
followers a great disservice. For sure anyone can predict that
any stock that has risen, over run it's p/e and other metrics might
fall for some time and be right about it. It's not a good practice
to go short on companies without debt and earning profits. After
all, look at how long and how much the shorters had to wade through
to garner the paltry gains they made. Nor are the biggest shorters
home yet.

3DS has been buying profitable companies and that's adding assets to
it's balance sheet. You really want to short companies with earnings,
no debt to speak of, profitable and adding some 600+ dollars worth of
assets per share? 9 times out of ten that strategy will cost you a bundle, but that's what they've been advocating as an investment
strategy for their short selling followers. Of course, they're
ignoring the fact that even as the price was dropping the institutional
investor have been adding to their positions and now hold a 59% interest
in 3DS. What do they know? They must know something eh?

It's not "pie in the sky" for a long term investor, to believe that a company earning money with more than enough assets to cover the stock price and no debt to pay off, will eventually realize a fairly decent price appreciation. So shorting is not a good policy here and those negatives the short side has been able to point to, make no difference
for the long term investor. We often see people are bullish on companies that have much less going for them than 2DS has, so the
near term price decline means little to nothing for long term investors. Except as an opportunity to get more shares on the cheap.

The price has fallen but, so has the overall market been falling as well, add to that, the short interest has been rising even as the price
has kept dropping. Then too the volume has been low as well, making it
easier for selling to push the price down. But these market conditions
don't last forever and it will be very interesting to see what happens
when they reverse.

You are our chart man here. I am no chart man, but I watch the day to day ticker and guess what? It looks to me same as you see in the charts.
All seasoned investors here know that stock usually plunge and keep falling dismally in the days before the rise. Long ago I noticed this, I've had penny stocks at .20 and day after day, without any news or discernible reason I'd watch them fall to heart breaking and breath taking depths. Finally that would stop and the stock would sit, seemingly for ages at the new bottom, fellow investors would be screaming and crying, weeping and gnashing their teeth. Then, just as suddenly the stock would start climbing and day after day it would go up faster and faster, lots of people sold out as the share price crossed into profits. This would happen because the stock wouldn't just go straight up, but it would do these little dances and small dips before climbing again. My nerve only held to 10 dollars per share (nice profit for a .20 stock eh?) but in the end the stock went to 20/share, who could have figured that out? But that rise was due to short sellers covering and late comers holding, having brought on momentum in the teens and therefore needing higher prices to profit.

Well, as I see it, it isn't often you can find a stock in a company with assets of more than 600/share, is profitable with no debt and in a young industry to boot. Just on those 4 metrics this stock is a buy and a hold. Because it is extremely rare that you will find a company with metrics like the ones I have cited. So, in my estimation the money is there, all we have to do is wait for it to arrive.

That's the idea the shorts have been pushing for the longest, that we should sell out of DDD and get into SSYS. Thus we have this cleverly written article which doesn't explain why SSYS is not yet profitable, Hmmm?
Besides the fact that in the market you can only do so much with the hard figures, vision, planning and several other non-quantifiable matters also figure heavily into the mix. As Mom used to say; "The race is not to the swiftest, but to he who endures to the end!"

I'll place my bets against the shorter who I catch averaging down every time.

This stock is not letting anyone down... It's simply trading. It's not like the share price is due to performance or value or anything other than investor sentiments, and then it mainly reflects the sentiments of those with the most money to trade in it, like institutional investors, long or short, they can and do put millions of dollars into a stock and take it out just as quickly sometimes on a daily basis, depending on what they're set up to accomplish.

Never get the impression that a stock is letting you down, simply because it's share price isn't increasing. MSFT, AAPL and others all went through periods where the share price went down, down, down, day after day, month after month. If you kept holding and waiting over several years you were finally richly rewarded. But share price has little to do with the real value of the company. Right now, if 3DS were to liquidate you'd be getting north of 600 dollars per share, because that's the value of the assets they have to sell. Hold tight and eventually the share price will reflect this value and more, but it's not going to go up in a straight line or over night, stocks just don't do that unless there are special conditions like IPO for instance. But this stock is not letting anyone down, it's only begun to fight.

Yep, HP said last year (June in fact) that they would have more information about their entry into 3DP in the fall, that never happened.
The longs on SA had many a very good reason why HP wouldn't want to be bothered with 3DP, but some of the other responses by the less informed investors smelled of fear and aversion to the mention of HP coming in. Naturally the short sellers (stuck with their huge unprofitable position) loved the smell of fear and ran with it, never missing an opportunity to remind that it was probably coming last fall.

Now that they're running out of gas, they've decided to renew this rumor. Alas, you can smell the sweat of desperation permeating their missives.

Ask yourself (after first looking at how and when the short position grew over time): Who shorts a stock and averages down? Averaging down makes no sense for short sellers who should be trying to average up if anything. Meaning that the short interest action is nothing more than an attempt at manipulation. Realize that they have their best chance to affect the share price of a stock when the volume is low, because they have only to short a few shares to push the price down. Lots of retail investors become demoralized by a descending share price and will bail, even against their better judgement, or simply because they envision getting more shares lower down.

Mention that 3DS has a book value of over 600 per share, they either go quiet or claim it must be a mistake. LOL As if all that M&A they complain that the company won't manage to integrate, never happened at all, or that it didn't bring with it assets that added to the companies balance sheet. Ask intelligent questions and you get back nothing save answers that would make Sarah Palin look like Einstein, or deafening silence.

Observe, when this stock was coming down through the 50's the short interest was hovering around 30 million shares. Then it descends into the forties and viola; the short position has increased to 36 million shares. I ask again: what short seller would do that? Most especially after holding their large short position for over 2 years, not getting a dime in rewards (meaning their money would have been better invested elsewhere). Worse, if they're paying interest on that money they've already piled up massive losses. They had better not be responsible for investing performance to their investors or they're in much deeper trouble than we know. Then it's hardly any wonder that they would thrash about so desperately and risk being caught trying to manipulate a stock.

So, that's what my DD is telling me. What's yours telling you?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Yep, that's part of the answer, also print speeds depends on the thickness of the product, if it's just a thin walled case the printing would probably take only minutes per item. You can see by the way the company is structured that they know all about the multiple machine requirements, which is probably why they got into the aftermarket and provided service bureaus, because they realized that not every producer would want, or be able to purchase a number of machines just to do a product run. So they make available alternatives to buying a number of machines, that leaves them with a lot of used machines. That's great for the consumer who needs a lot of machines for a few single item runs. This is most especially important for start ups.

People who need used machines would opt for "certified used" from the original mfg., over used/salvage dealers and such in the aftermarket. Even SSYS uses our service bureaus when their customers order materials that SSYS doesn't have machines to print with. See how it works? Our diversity of product offerings has made our biggest competitor one of our customers too. So, what chance does the even smaller competition have to not come our way? In short, all these start ups and supposed "competition" are actually our sales people, they're selling for us! It couldn't get better than that.

Uh Oh... Rule 613 (Consolidated Audit Trail)

MORE INFO

The SEC is proposing a system to track all market trades, meaning that scammers are going to find the going much more difficult going forward.

Pass this along.

Uh Oh... Rule 613 (Consolidated Audit Trail)

MORE INFO

The SEC is proposing a system to track all market trades, meaning that scammers are going to find the going much more difficult from here on in.

r/s's are a way for companies to take back your shares and re-issue them/sell them again. Which is why people are warned away from companies like this, the danger of r/s's and private placements and other dodges make money for the insiders only. Good luck.

Getting 1% of that market is not as hard as some would have us believe. They talk about 3d printing being slow, but, what they don't seem to realize is that it takes a minimum of at least 6 days to cast an engine block or a crankshaft. Then it takes tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment to finish these items. While 3dp would print a finished item. Meaning that the finishing equipment would be doing more testing than finishing and thus last longer and need less servicing. The bonus is that the mfg could then get away with fewer finishing machines. Hundreds of millions of dollars in savings is nothing to sneeze at.

Take bell makers, they have to cast 10 bells to get one that rings right. This is because of how the metal crystallizes, too big crystals and the bell cracks, too small and it doesn't ring right. 3dp will allow greater control over the crystallization process and so you get more usable bells per run. Bonus is they're easier to finish, just wipe away excess material, instead of scrubbing all day with wire brushes.

Best yet is that, you can mfg items in smaller far away countries and counties and avoid shipping costs and time as well as tariffs and duties.

We're going to see big shifts as mfg's decide it makes more sense to distribute their manufacturing around the globe, instead of mfg in one place and shipping long distances and paying duties, tariffs and shipping costs.

In short, there's more than just a few reasons that this industry is going to rock!

Not to worry, institutions own over 50%, they're on their guard against any takeover at all and will demand that any talk of a buy out will have to start with the assets per share and go up from there. Meaning that any takeover attempt would be messy, costly and practically impossible and worse it would deliver few if any profits in the short term. Since that's what takeover artist and raiders look for > short term profits that are easy to get, it's not gonna happen. No protection needed, the market itself protects the co..

What newbies don't know about bk is, a company is usually forced into it by creditor who demand repayment of defaulted loans. This company has virtually no debt, thus there's no threat of bk since there's nobody to force the repayment of defaulted loans.

Meanwhile the co. keeps churning out profits and adding assets through it's M&A. Eventually the 600+ dollars per share in assets is going to translate into a share price somewhere north of those assets, depending on the profits and future outlook as well as the prospect of short squeeze.

Of course, a short squeeze peak will only last a short time, then the stock price will settle back to levels in line with performance plus assets and future outlook. No one can pick the date when this all will happen, we only know that it will happen at some point in time.

You should have said "new revenue stream" as we already have revenue streaming in, that's why 3DS is profitable.

Also note that the negative posters and article writers on Alpha keep either ignoring or denigrating 3DS for the M&A they have done. This is because they don't want investors to realize that the M&A has added assets to the company of over 600 dollars per share of book value. As a wise man once said "Words can be found to support any cause", which is why; while it's okay to read other peoples opinions, you have to do research on your own, to see if what they have said holds any water.

Remember, they found words and metrics to support the case that GOOG would go much lower than 85, they found reasons and metrics to support their claims that AAPL and TSLA wouldn't rise much at all, and more than likely they would descend greatly. Same with NFLX and a host of other big gainers. If you respected their opinions you would have missed out on mega gains. So, who do you turn to to learn the truth about a prospective investment? The SEC filings are a good place to start, to get the facts about the current state of the company and it's proposals. All most metrics can do is tell you where the company has come from and where they are now, to determine what their future might be, you'll need all the hard facts you can gather and your own imagination, experience and knowledge.

The "name of the game" in 3DP will be the largest company with the greatest diversity of products, materials and supports. One material companies might do well for a while, but in the end their costumers will move over to the biggest most diversified company because they will need 'end to end' support. I mean, just imagine you're printing in plastic and that does well for you for a while, but then you need metal and/or ceramics, glass or other substances. That means you need more machines and where will you be likely to find them? 3DS offers end to end support and is even involved in providing after market support for their products. Meaning you can get other machines for a fraction of their original cost, and still have support in case you run into problems.

Otherwise you find yourself dealing with multiple companies and many of them too small to offer much in the way of support, let alone after market involvement. Do you really want to go it alone with used machines on a production schedule? Probably not. Need help, need a manual, need a part? Most one material companies will be too small to help you. While over time these problems will get worse as we get more diverse materials, more software and protocols to deal with the myriad of specialty metal alloys and ceramics.

Microsoft had competition in the windows space, but those competitors fell by the wayside because they couldn't offer the level of support that MSFT was able to provide, because of it's size. A constant stream of updates was needed to keep windows running properly and make it more compatible with ever more diverse programs wanting to run on it. So the competition eventually collapsed as their customers switched. I suspect that GM didn't pick 3DS just because we had a metal printer they needed, they looked at SSYS and others and saw that 3DS provided the greatest level of support and materials diversity. Meaning that if they had a problem or wanted to work with other materials, they wouldn't have to be dealing with multiple suppliers.

3DS is a strong contender with the muscle to provide diverse materials, machines and support as well as after market involvement. It's an 'end to end' solution, not just a "Johnny come lately", "Me Too", one product enterprise.

Yes... Perfect time to buy, this stock is going to be a collectors item! Hahaha!

Well it looks like the stock is cratering/crashing, which usually precedes the final climb. Who knows? I didn't see any reason for the drop, other than that the entire market backed down. I also noted that the short interest is now at ~36 million shares meaning they've been opening new short positions at the lows or averaging their short positions down. What kind of short seller averages down? Makes no sense to me, unless the co is going bk. But I also noted that institutions now hold over 50% which is a substantial increase in their holdings.

Well, all I will do is continue to hold and if an opportunity presents I will add vigorously. The drop seems more like manipulation than real market action, to me. So there you have my guesses.

Okay, some consumers have some money to burn, so they buy a 3dp out of curiosity. They probably have in mind repairing some favorite item, a cup, a chair, picture frame where all they need is some little part.

The rest of them are thinking in terms of making a few bucks in their spare time, making only heaven knows what. But, for most of them the machine winds up in the closet along side the Bull Worker and other exercise devices they brought for a program of self improvement that never materialized. These are, after all, CONSUMERS, they really don't need a reason to buy, impulse is quite enough. Most consumers dream dreams, but they're not very good at sticking to or making good plans, otherwise they'd be hobbyist. So, after satisfying the need that led to the impulsive buy (or not) they simply move on. Some will offer their machines on eBay or Craigslist, others will simply let them collect dust in a closet, give it away to a friend and such.

The few who escalate to the hobbyist level, will find that plastics are not enough and will then look for a metal or ceramics printer. Since most of the so called "competition" only has plastic printers, they're simply doing intros for 3DS in the end.

The consumer was slow to adopt the computer because they had no reason to wade through the initial complexities and learning curves. Only when easy to run computers offered them social media, email and other communications methods, did they finally get on board. So, until these machines become "Plug n Play" with thousands of well cataloged files for things, is there even a chance that the consumer will embrace these machines, obviously that's quite a way off in the future. To the consumer, it doesn't matter how much they need a thing, if they've been doing acceptably well without it, they have little need to put in the time to change. Worse, they already have enough on their hands to fill their time, they don't need or want another burden.

The short sellers started with "the p/e is too high" and that got them going. But the p/e only went higher and higher as more M&A got done. Next they resorted to bashing and manipulative shorting. Where, if you look carefully, you'll see that they opened and increased their position at the lows, what shorter does that? Well, it left them stuck and unable to cover without the price taking a disastrous climb.

So next they moved on to predict that new competition would appear and take 3DS down. Like Hitler in the bunker waiting for the 9th Army to come to the rescue, they waited for competition to appear and pull their chestnuts from the fire. Like Hitlers' 9th Army, that hasn't happened either. There are a rag tag bunch of capital starved companies offering single material printers, but there's no way they resemble anything like competition. Like the trouble with Hitlers' 9th Army, which was no longer an Army at all, it had been reduced to just a bunch of men desperately fleeing for their lives. The "competition" they speak of is just a few independent start ups, cobbling together the cheapest machines they can make and struggling to sell them as quickly as possible.

Last night on Netflix I watched the "Makerbot", while they called it a "documentary" it looked more like a self promotional for the CEO. In any event he shows that the consumer market is hardly ready to fuel much in the way of growth, at some 200 per machine he's sold only a paltry few thousand and made a market cap of 10 million. That's not competition that's more like a lone storefront operation. Driven by social media and the internet to pull sales. It just can't stack up against the biggies. Sure there will be a lot of people selling machines, but they'll probably get shaken out by the time the consumer market gets going.

Thanks Slyder75. I'm sure that will be the case here, despite the machinations of the shorters.

Yeah, I saw that too, but you need to take into account their overall holdings. In that view you see that only one insider is selling a significant slice of his holdings, the others are "automatic sells" and/or they are a small percent of their holdings. Also remember that these are insiders, people who also get bundles of shares as compensation, so they often don't have to put up hard cash, and they have dreams and schemes of dreams that they don't want to put off. Even Bill Gates sold lots of shares on a regular basis. Those shares were replaced whenever the stock split (which was often).

In short, I see nothing unusual about these sells, these insiders simply want cash now, probably to pay off mortgages, buy that boat or other luxury item or take some grand trip, and are unwilling to wait for what could be, perhaps another year (remember wifey enters into the equation to sell as well). Of course insider selling is a short sellers dream event, but as I said, on closer inspection these sells are hardly worth any attention at all.

Last we heard from the co was waaaay back in May when they said the audit would be completed in just a few weeks. See lower right hand side of your screens. Nothing further so far.

You are very welcomed of course. As to how long it will take for the stock to reach or go over book value, that's very hard to pinpoint, but it usually doesn't stay that way for very long when a co is profitable, even despite missed earnings, so you can't use earnings misses to time anything. Of course, I did notice that the previous two earnings misses didn't affect share price much at all. The stock only fell a few points on the news then recovered. Perhaps some of our chart fellows here can give us a clue, I'm sure they've seen this kind of action before and they can easily check the archived charts for goog, appl and amzn, which I believe may also have come through a phase like this.

In the past (pre 21st century) stocks that traded below their book value for very long did so because the company was troubled. Investors feared bk and the fire sale prices on assets that goes with that and that kept the share price below the value of the assets the co had. Usually that condition would bring in "Raiders" investors who would buy up the company at the cheap share price, then make a profit by selling off assets and paying out dividends (of course they held mountains of shares so they got the lions share of those dividends plus bonuses and perks. [They couldn't pay themselves much because the high tax on income meant they'd have to pay themselves many tens of millions of dollars just to take home a paltry million or two. That's not the case today with the tax rates far lower so they can now take hundreds of millions in pay and still take most of it home).]

Of course corporate raiders destroyed the company in the process and left behind empty shells, for which they were widely hated. "Chain Saw" Al Dunlap was one of these, although he billed himself as a "turnaround" artist, he merely cut cost, dumped key employee's and generally left the company a struggling mess while he pocketed the difference and moved on. You might want to Google for his story. It makes an interesting read.

As far as the "integration" issues, my guess is that if 3DS were unable to successfully integrate any of these acquisitions, they would probably just spin it off, by issuing current shareholders new shares in the spun off company. In short there are more ways to win here than there are to lose, which is what makes this a great investment for people who are antsy and wish to sleep soundly at night. LOL.

Generally if a corp acquires other companies, the assets of those companies goes on the balance sheet as the acquirers assets. 3DS has been buying up companies, but the pundits then fall back on the meme about "successful integration" of those assets/companies, as a way to negate the fact that shares are now worth more (if liquidated) after each acquisition, simply because there are more assets behind each share.

As of this months reporting here: EXTREME VALUE STOCKS The book value per share is $663.32. Meaning that if the company were to liquidate today, you would get about that much per share. If the company is in bk, obviously there is a fire sale on its assets, but if the company is a profitable going concern, they can afford to be choosy and wait for the best price on the assets they offer for sale, meaning you might get more.

The short sellers bet seems to be that either those assets are not going to be worth anything, or that the profits will somehow disappear and the company will be forced into bankruptcy (aka bk). How this might happen to a company with no debt is a complete mystery to me. Worse for the shorters is that P/E means little to nothing in the face of book value for a company like this, in an industry like this. But that's what they've bet some 2 billion dollars on. Hardly a wonder then that desperation would drive a need for plenty of negative articles against the company. But, as you can see, missed earnings did little in the way of damage to the share price. Not only is there no threat of bk or "doubt to continue as a going concern", there are no lenders who can force the issue upon us.

Thus the best strategy here is to hold, accumulate and wait. Because usually as business improves, the stock price will tend to exceed the book value per share eventually. Think of it this way: If you had a bar of gold worth 10k, how much would you sell it for? 3DS has $663.32 in assets for each share of stock, now selling for only ~50 per share. Quite a bargain to be able to buy that much in assets for only 50 or so dollars per share.

Hope this is of some help.

We cannot know when the market value of a stock will be recognized by the market look at the archived charts on google which held 85 dollars for months even though it was clearly worth much more. For some strange reason stocks seem to drop before they rise, but that shakes out the weak hands, the momo's and the day traders and such, then it goes up so fast there's no time for them to collect their courage and get back in, so the profits get away from them. Seems the market doesn't like to reward weak hands.

Yeppers... That's the way I see it as well. You can't have a stock selling for 50 dollars when the company itself has assets worth over 600 per share. Eventually the share price moves up to and over the book value. Either that or the company gets raided, but there aren't that many raiders around and they wouldn't have an easy time of taking 3DS over. In fact it might very well be impossible right now, since few people in the know, especially the institutional holders wouldn't allow it.

One institutional holder in here has extremely deep pockets and is known to be a very "hungry" entity. It looks to me that they're planing to feast on the short seller and add their stakes to their already humongous cash horde. Of course I could be wrong but my idea is to sit tight and accumulate. Lots of people in here, I'd guess, let Tesla, Amazon, Apple and Google get away, they're probably thinking they won't let his one be another one that got away.

SA pays him 500 for his articles, so as fast as he can crank'em out he can make a tidy little paycheck. So the only question that remains is why is he so invested in seeing a profitable company tarnished? The answer to that question may or may not lay in the fact that there's some hedge fund, likely holding most of that almost ~2 billion dollar short position in this company. Obviously, if this stock appreciates, they are facing a potential loss of billions of dollars and perhaps a one way trip to the local homeless shelter. I have no idea how motivating such a prospect could be, since I hear that gov't provided homeless shelters have been substantially upgraded lately. (lol)

Of course, he ignores the fact that General Motors just made a significant purchase of 3DS machines (where there's a potential of even more and bigger sales, depending on the machines performing as expected). There was also some mention a while ago, that 3DS was in talks with the Pentagon, you know, the people who buy 12 billion dollar aircraft carriers the way drunks purchase beer, by the six-pack, nor are 700 dollar toilet seats any prohibition to their spendthrift.

Oh yes, and before I forget, [ the extreme value stocks.com site ] shows DDD with a book value of ~600+$/share. Which, when I posted that to the SA site in the comments, some strange responder said that had to be a mistake. Guess he hasn't been investing long enough to realize that all those acquisitions they complain about, are actually assets, which add to the book value of the company. What that means essentially is, each share you buy at 50 or so dollars per share, would be worth some 600+ dollars per share if the company were to suddenly liquidate now.

But hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves with conspiracy theories, it could simply be that, that writer merely wants to buy more shares at lower prices and so bashes away for that reason. OR, it could be that he's being paid "under the table" to present a negative view.

In any event, these things usually sort themselves out on their own, due to market forces. I doubt any remarks by a biased writer will do anything more than affect a few uniformed investors to the same effect that was had when such pundits and analysts told us to wait for 20 dollar google, or to avoid fad stocks (and their "cult" followers) like Apple, Tesla, Netflix and Amazon.

So, in closing I must remind you, whether you are a seasoned investor or novice, DO YOUR OWN DUE DILLIGENCE then make up your own mind, you'll be very glad that you did.

Anyone heard of "Darkest Hour"? Long term things will sort themselves out. With lots of things in the works and people cooperating to make things better, it's entirely more likely they'll succeed in the end, simply because they have more resources and more diversity. The road to success is not a straight one, it often involves mistakes, errors and missteps being made that reveal new ways forward. Sit tight and wait, "Rome wasn't built in a day", as you well know.

All the pundits and others can do is use today's figures to fashion the metrics they use to evaluate performance, by weighing those figures against the data they have from other sources. There's no way to guarantee that any of that data means anything at all. Because it provides only a view of comparisons that may or may not be applicable to what is really happening, about which they can know nothing. In short, they're all doing nothing but guessing. My guess is that a valuable technology that lightens expenses and workloads is going to be a big winner in the end, just the same as other labor saving devices/inventions were before.

Whether 3DS is going to be the leader or turn out to be just another player, either way as the industry grows it's going to get so large that, even as a "just another player" company the potential is still huge for all involved. Bringing the dreams to earth is always a task fraught with problems, fits and starts and stalls. Do not be fooled by the trivial analysis of each foul shot, whose off the bench and who's on it. Because win, lose or draw, the final score will be big enough to make all the fans happy.

Warning over electrical brain stimulation

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27343047

In any event this new electrical brain stimulation could be a beneficial product for iliv, regulation will only make it better as that will limit practitioners to only those with the necessary skills, licenses and letters.

Electro stimulation making new strides:
Applying a tiny electrical current to the brain could make you better at learning maths, according to Oxford University scientists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/health-11692799

Look at this: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28972425
researchers have found a way that actually improves memory with electrical stimulation. Still in the testing stages but hey... who knows?

What's even more informative than what the pundits are saying, is what they aren't bothering to say. No mention, for example, that 3DS has been in talks with the Pentagon. That's probably the reason for the 2Q earnings "misses" since when you talk to the Pentagon you don't cut corners, if they suggest something or wish for a thing, you had better get cracking on providing it, since they're the worlds largest consumer with the deepest pockets known to man.

So what would make 3DS a better choice than SSYS for 3dp? Well, since we have more materials to print in to offer, it makes sense that you deal with the co. that offers full service across the board, rather than have to come here after finding SSYS inadequate to meet your needs.

All these competitors are doing is funneling customers into 3DS, because, when they need to print in other materials, they'll discover that 3DS already has it. Dealing with two companies is somewhat more complicated than simply dealing with one. So they'll be switching over to us, after spending their learning time with them.

Good to see 3DS taking a conservative approach and not flaking relationships in progress, better not to get expectations needlessly higher than they should be. Time will reveal the truth of the matter. But, as usual I note, we only learn about things long after the work has been started or done, which is why it's a good idea to hold onto stocks likely to move fast on "suddenly breaking news". Since in reality, that news has already been in the works for months, but no investor knew about it until it's officially announced. Don't try to time the market, history shows that almost always fails.