Looks like the flippers got sucker punched today. What a close. Someone was just waiting for the ask side of the trade to fill in, then they took all of them.

All the best,
Silversmith

So, in a handful of days we'll find out who else now has reportable holdings. This was a big move into SGLB today. I'm guessing hedge fund. Which could be very good. They will be savvy enough to know when the fruit is fully ripe, as opposed to the swarm of historical flippers we have around here.

All the best,
Silversmith

I am so glad we didn't get sucked up into anything tight with GE. GE is getting crushed. Dividend cut to a penny. SEC investigation announced. Who knows where they will end up.

All the best,
Silversmith

If SGLB gets to the point where it closes above $2, then it will be open to global investing eyes. $2 is usually the cutoff for data feed sites that track sustained trends, bullish and bearish moves, and new highs or lows. That would bring infinitely more eyes to the game.

All the best,
Silversmith

I'll take a stab at it Tar Heel. I have several parallel thought streams about it, though I haven't yet firmly crystalized any of it.
I don't think we will retrace any significant amount, if any at all; unless SGLB shoots itself in the foot in the upcoming conference call. For me, I noticed a narrative change in the SGLB story, specifically, during the last conference call. The stock started moving up with Schwartz, but the sustained up move started the very day after the last conference call.

The multi-year decline pattern chart stats are completely broken. None of the decline trend stats fit the chart anymore. This thing has basically turned on a dime. It has solidly broken through the 200 day, and we have a golden cross coming up in the next couple of weeks. I don't think there is much to hold the stock back from a chart point of view.

I personally am thinking around the concepts that four things are going on at once. One is that it does seriously look like the metal AM industry is going to get things going with someone's IPQA, and there still doesn't seem to be any serious competition. Plus there was a much more positive and firm stance from SGLB about PR3D being incorporated, coming from the C level. Plus most, if not all, of the weak hands have thrown in the towel, and there is no more chronic daily fringe selling. And finally, I think the market makers got badly caught out last week. I think they got their butts kicked and now have taken the position that the only viable option is to allow the stock to freely move up until decent liquidity on both sides of the trade comes into the market. I think the trading volume has, for the moment at least, moved beyond what they can handle with such a small float.

If you go back and look at the entire stock history, back before 2010, through to today, you will see the pre bubble trend slope, the bubble, the bubble burst, and the long decline to the bottom, followed by the current up move. If you take out the bubble and the burst, and ask yourself what the overall trend line is over the entirety, if no bubble had occurred (and therefore the long decline wouldn't have been needed to bring things back to normalcy), it would end up around $6.25 or so today. I think that is where we are going. How long it will take I don't know. But at $6 per share SGLB is still less than a $50 million market cap. If the market now thinks that SGLB is the IPQA to get things going, then $50 million is not much. I do think that as long as things don't blow up in the upcoming conference call, then we will blow the Dawson target out of the water. I expect the up trend to continue as long as the conference call goes okay. But it can't go up every day. There needs to be the normal down days. Otherwise it will be volatile.

All the best,
Silversmith

Nice week. This stock is on the move, and though I was thinking it would be next week, we damn near saw the $1.60s today.

All the best,
Silversmith

Quite the dust up over the last two days. I show a $1.44 close for the day. And we bounced off the 200 day from above. Things are looking good here. The chart shows the up move remains established. $1.60s will show up before long.
With any firm word of established business for SGLB, this thing will explode. It's going to be fun to watch.

Roy-G-Biv is the science type acronym for the visible frequency color spectrum Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. I know some long's SGLB holdings were flashing at least a little pale green color yesterday. LOL

All the best,
Silversmith

I think things have become so tight, that as long as SGLB doesn't shoot itself in the foot we have a good shot at being around four or five bucks a share in the modestly near future.

All the best,
Silversmith

PR3D keeps getting more and more powerful and useful.

All the best,
Silversmith

The mid-October short interest report is out. SGLB short position is up 32K and change at 5.1% of float. That was about ten days ago. No idea what it is now. But this is not a heavily shorted stock. That is for sure.

All the best,
Silversmith

You still aren't understanding the mechanics outlook. The price shock to the up side has no staying power, not so much because no one believes the stock should be there, but because the market makers become badly in the red trying to cover the heavily disrupted order book. Over six million shares traded yesterday. But they weren't over six million separate shares. Mostly the same shares were traded back and forth millions of times by liquidity providers trying to bring order to the mess. The market makers get in the red with losses by shorting shares to sell to the buy order when there are no shares available directly. Their only hope is that the buy order/s get cleared out soon. Then they can bring the trading balance down to the 'proper' prices and cover their shorts to get out of the red. It is the market makers bringing the price back down, not so much investors. I wouldn't be surprised if less than a quarter of the shares traded were actually for investor trades.
Not long ago one of the big named brokerage houses was fined heavily by the SEC because they chronically did what I just described. Technically what happened yesterday is not appropriate. But hey, what are you going to do? The market makers tried to handle the order book.

All the best,
Silversmith

And just so there's no confusion, in my opinion RFB was right today. I didn't read most of his posts, but I suspect that it was a buyer beware day, and a distribution event. Shares likely weren't available for the order book, thus the distribution issue, but it didn't have squat to do with the new authorized count. It is a simple fact that until the authorized becomes outstanding, it means next to nothing. You can't read what the future holds. Dilution doesn't happen until it happens; except for a badly foundering company. SGLB has been exemplary in their frugal behavior, regardless of what the screaming critics have been spitting. It is just as probable that the new authorized could be utilize for company revenue generation as it is for keeping the lights on, so it is a non-entity at the moment.

All the best,
Silversmith

There were a lot of very funny comments on the board today. Alphabet small-ball takes the cake though.

Why do you all think there is a human reason for a day like today?
SGLB isn't alone in experiencing price shock days. Massive studies have been undertaken for decades and decades concerning price shock days for stocks. It happens all over the place. Wall Street barely even thinks it understands why a stock price moves at all, up or down. Price shocks and very high volume have been studied for many, many years. Absent the blatant manipulation pump and dump, there is huge debate about way-high volume price jumps. And since the day started immediately with surging volume, I would say you can comfortably eliminate a pump and dump scenario.

The best I have read over the years about out-of-the-blue volume spikes and price shocks is that two things occur. A stock is near a liquidity crisis point, where shares are mostly not available for, in todays case, purchase, and a large order hits that severely disrupts the order book. If you saw all the four and five decimal place prices that went through today, then you know for sure that the market makers were scrambling big time. I am pretty sure that SGLB shares are super tight on the up side after today. The problem is that after a day like today, the book and investor mentality is all screwed up. It will be days for the dust to settle.
The second best study about a day like today that I have seen is that great convulsions can occur when there is large disagreement among investors over what the proper market cap for a company should be. Sound familiar?

All the best,
Silversmith

Amazing that most of these speakers only get 20 minutes to do their entire presentation. Definitely not a deep dive on any of it.

All the best,
Silversmith

What's so big about today? Shareholder meetings are mostly a waste of time and money. Even the big guns of wall street and industry are saying this. 99 of 100 times nothing much happens at shareholder meetings. When something does happen it's usually about entertainment and circus.

The new hire looks to have been brought on for moving things into the closed loop phase. The sooner the better too. I think this is what industry is waiting for, must have even. They know they can't live with the cost of unpredictability in printing, and the cost of post process inspection. If they are going to print, they still can't make it economically viable, in spite of seeing real time deviation with any IPQA, if they have to stop, clear, reload and restart. Closed loop is the only way metal AM is going to get going at full speed.

All the best,
Silversmith

I would have to say yes it will El Jefe, based upon the number of times my phone has been ringing lately; which has been exactly zero times. When the measure went down in the original expansion vote, they had a group calling high share count people numerous times trying to offer a discussion of the matter. Not so this time for me anyway. I am thinking they have the votes already.

All the best,
Silversmith

Heading for a greater than 700 point drop in the DOW, NASDAQ looking at a 3.5% down day, resistance at the SGLB 200 day average, credit paper moving down, nowhere to hide, and if SGLB closes up any amount at all I will be happy.

All the best,
Silversmith

WSJ short interest shows SGLB 9/14/18 short numbers down over 7% from the 8/31/18 posting. Short position at 4.6% of float. I'll bet the 9/31/18 data will be even better.

All the best,
Silversmith

SGLB chart looking much better. We break the 200 day, it'll move up to $1.80 ish pretty easily. Nice close today. There seems to be strength moving in from outside sources. Word is getting around, and I'll bet it consistently expands even more from here. I doubt much is coming from this board. The bulk of this board degenerated into revulsion and capitulation long ago.
SGLB bringing home some contracts, continued movement into the stock, solidification of PR3D as the AM solution and wall street will start getting wind of it all. When they move in you had better have what you want to have because it will be way too late at that point.

All the best,
Silversmith

No way to tell for sure from the video frame T&L. But since SGLB's PR3D is the only in-situ system they have reported they are using, it is probably SGLB's.

All the best,
Silversmith

Pretty careful wording there. Lots at stake. They are probably doing one hundred percent post process CT. If that's the road they are going to stay on for a while we will probably see Pratt and Honeywell hand them their butt. I love the tiptoe wording though. SGLB is in a great position. It's all about the patents; plus a significant part of the industry appearing to decide to move forward with IPQA.

All the best,
Silversmith

The item sitting at a 45 degree angle is definitely a pump impeller T&L.

All the best,
Silversmith

GE isn't any longer the eight hundred pound gorilla in the AM world. They are out of money, billions of dollars behind on obligations, shedding divisions and about to cut dividend payouts again. And they have some very savvy and capable printer companies for heavy duty competition. I would be surprised if they move the metal AM needle much any time soon. The epicenter of metal AM has moved to Europe. We are likely lucky that SGLB didn't become tied to the hip of GE.

All the best,
Silversmith

At a minimum both DARPA and Moog, who is directly working with the US Navy program, will have carried SGLB into the ONR platform. The ONR document was careful to mention no company name from industry. But there is no doubt in my mind that SGLB is in there. But more important, this is a big entity saying they are going to go with IPQA and closed loop tech. It is very much looking like metal AM is going with IPQA tech. That is very good news. SGLB will be an investment win. It is a matter of how big the return will be.

GE's QM Meltpool, from Concept Laser, is simply a 'me too' product. When asked a few weeks ago if GE was developing an IPQA solution, they responded that they had QM Meltpool for that. But they will have to license from SGLB to use it when the time comes. SGLB is in a very good position. The two keys for that were the patents, and that the AM industry would indeed go with IPQA for its solution. It looks like SGLB is winning in both areas.

All the best,
Silversmith

Some low-ball report. I'll take all that I can get considering they threw out that $63.00 per share marker for a top.

All the best,
Silversmith

This sounds good to me wick. All these stories coming out about the many organizations planning on incorporating sensor based IPQA systems is very encouraging. The more it looks like the metal AM industry is going with sensor based monitoring, the bigger the win for SGLB will be. It's all about the patents. All these organizations are going to have to pay SGLB for the tech license for the right to continue with their systems. I think this may be the reason for our move up. I think maybe people are realizing the industry will indeed use sensor based IPQA, and the patents mean SGLB is the gate keeper.

All the best,
Silversmith

El Jefe,
I have been following the scope of CT technology as a potential competitor for SGLB for quite a while now. The X-ray image world for quality inspection has long been a proven and workable tool for post process inspection in the wider manufacturing world. Since the start of the push for metal AM, the CT world has been busy trying to figure out a way to make CT applicable to 3D printing. There are great difficulties in making CT work as a viable option for 3D metal printing concerning cost and time, and in some instances effectiveness. A couple of the biggest are so far deal breakers for the industry. The largest problem is that the positional spatial relationship between the X-ray source, the printed part and the imaging receiver is critical, fixed spatially, and must be very close together in order to get the resolution needed to see fine detail. So far it hasn't worked out for anything other than post process inspection. And even then there are shielding effects that distort and confuse the imaged result. As a real time IPQA tool, it is going to take a major breakthrough to make it work.
But as far as the patents go, technically an X-ray is a photon. But the science world doesn't entertain the idea that an X-ray is in the same category as a visible or infrared photon. They really are two different animals, though both are basically traveling packet of oscillating electro-magnetic energy, albeit of greatly different energies. Your thought is interesting though.
Where did you see the info about what you are referring to?

All the best,
Silversmith

I seriously doubt its anything about inside knowledge Capt. It seems to me to be simply a case of SGLB's story having become compelling.

All the best,
Silversmith

Too funny T&L. Mustafa Megahead is a big name as well. In fact, he, Peralta and just about everyone else in all the various presentations are the cream of the industry. These people stand tall in advancing the metal AM industry. They come up everywhere in any research effort by anyone curious. This looks like it was a major powerhouse showing of presentations.

All the best,
Silversmith

You don't think the US and World patent offices granting patents and approving patent applications for their product doesn't confer legitimacy? You don't think DARPA and the world's very biggest guns of organizations inviting SGLB into their lairs confers legitimacy?

Never mind. You keep doing what you're doing.

All the best,
Silversmith

You are so gullible Objective Ob. And so is anyone else who falls for it. You can find dirt on absolutely every single major or minor investment firm across the globe. The number of investment firms that haven't been caught up in a scandal is very tiny.
Go ahead. Google any firm you can think of. I can guarantee you will see front page listings of scandal reports. If they aren't pushing it, they aren't making money. If they're pushing it, they cross lines of conduct. Its just the way the world works.

All the best,
Silversmith

DARPA is a big deal for anybody. But it is huge for SGLB. I expect a very big effect and good things to come from the DARPA program. Mr. Rice is essentially certain that the light shined on SGLB from the DARPA program will be conclusively indicative that PR3D is the preferred solution for IPQA. He as much as said it in the last conference call. But this article confuses me a little. The article is stated to be 2 days old. Yet it ends with the quote from Cola, and says he is the President and CEO of SGLB. He wasn't in those positions for many months now. Is it an old DARPA quote, or an error by the article author?

Regardless, there is an unmistakable sense that SGLB is about to be successful. The stock is quietly and steadily being wound tighter. There are now some non-Ihub people buzzing about SGLB. The chronic Ihubber posters that have nothing but toxic words for all things SGLB have been sounding ridiculous and purely emotional. They no longer sound very rational.

Now investing in SGLB has come down to being in, or out. News, when it comes, will seem to have fallen out of the sky. There won't be time to take a meaningful position before it moves big. Of course it has to be meaningful news. But if it is, the opportunity to pick up large amounts of shares will be over. We will see. But over the last three weeks I have more than doubled my position. It just feels right, in my gut.

All the best,
Silversmith

Let alone someone have the thought, God forbid, that Cola now feels that PR3D's success is pretty well assured, and it is a good time for him to step back and let someone else take it across the line.

All the best,
Silversmith

Particularly for a near term buyout of SGLB, Max.

All the best,
Silversmith

I still think that maybe Cola is just spent. But it might also be a play to become fully vested in all of his outstanding options, immediately. He had a whole train of options that didn't fully vest for a ten year period. But from the below excerpt from his revised employment contract, he becomes fully vested immediately.

Under the Employment Agreement, Mr. Cola will be entitled to participate in any employee benefit and welfare plans and programs of the Company in which any C-level senior officer of the Company or its subsidiaries are eligible to participate. The Employment Agreement provides that in the event (i) the Company’s terminates Mr. Cola’s employment without “Cause” (as defined), (ii) Mr. Cola resigns from the Company for "Good Reason" (as defined), (iii) Mr. Cola resigns from the Company after the nine-month anniversary of the effective date of the Employment Agreement (the "Nine Month Period") for any reason or no reason, or (iv) Mr. Cola dies or becomes disabled during the Nine Month Period in the performance of his duties for the Company (each of (i)-(iv), a "Termination Event"), subject to entering into a general release of all claims, (x) he will be entitled to continue to receive the Base Salary, Annual Bonus and benefits which he was receiving as of the time of termination for the greater of the remaining term of employment or a period of twelve months, with such compensation to be payable in equal installments in accordance with the Company's normal payroll practices, but no less frequently than bi-monthly, and (y) any unvested portion of Option A and the Original Option will fully vest.

All the best,
Silversmith

When I consider the fact that for more than six years Cola was largely the only meaningful person that comprised the entirety of SGLB's pointy-end of the spear, traveling all over the world, having to deal with the unforgiving, high intensity, take no prisoners entities the likes of Siemens, CAT, Aerojet, Honeywell, GE, Moog, US Air Force, US Navy, Trumpf and all the other very, very heavy hitters, I think this is simply the case that Cola has nothing left in the gas tank. He is spent. And SGLB simply needs to bring in fresh talent to take this thing to the finish line.

All the best,
Silversmith

From the release, Alan,

"On September 10, 2018, Mark Cola, the President and Chief Technology Officer of Sigma Labs, Inc. (“we,” “our,” “us,” or the “Company”), notified us that he will retire from the Company"

and

"Mr. Cola’s retirement from the Company is not due to any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies, or practices."

So how you can claim what you are claiming is beyond me. You don't know, period. You would like a certain outcome. But you don't know.

All the best,
Silversmith

Alan,

I think your reasoning is probably pretty accurate about Fisher. But the root cause is much more involved than that which so many here think. I have talked to a decent number of engineers over the past months. Have you ever wondered why the metal AM industry hasn't gotten its feet under itself; why the industry hasn't taken off in at least an initial burst of growth? With the untold millions and millions of cost savings anticipated with metal AM, why haven't the printer companies sold a very many more printers than they have? Why hasn't industry jumped in with both feet? It isn't because they don't want to.

The issue is that there is still an enormous, horrible, unacceptable amount of variability in the whole print process. There are large amounts of variation in printed parts stretching from powder behavior, powder layer distribution, printer function, part distortion, and basic material characteristics. The funny thing is that one of the things that seems to not be experiencing variability is how PR3D and IPQA is working. PR3D works as advertised. It needed some refinement. It needed to be made user friendly. In the beginning it was basically something only a scientist could love. It still needs to evolve. Does industry want more out of PR3D? Sure. So does SGLB. Why? Because the metal AM industry needs a magic elixir to make the whole printing process work within acceptable cost and scrap terms. If PR3D could somehow make up for all the shortfalls of all the many other variation contributors in the print process, that would be wonderful. Basically the industry can't pull the trigger until the whole sweep of the printing process is under control. Why would you buy PR3D, or any IPQA system, if you still couldn't print a run of parts. PR3D will sure tell you when you have made a questionable part. But you have still made a bad part. It is still an unacceptable loss of manufacturing resources in cost and time. The industry is buying no one's IPQA solution. Because it won't solve the variability problem. That is why you hear Cola talking about making the printer/powder closed system be the variable, and the part is the constant. That is the end game of PR3D. Make PR3D control the closed system such that the process variation gets countered in a manner that keeps the part character constant.
That is way, way beyond what the nature of the IPQA function was supposed to be.

But now, the sixty four million dollar question is, will the metal AM industry decide that PR3D is good enough right now to get the ball initially rolling for metal AM. Is it good enough to get some production and refurbishment work started, knowing that further development will only make it more and more powerful. In spite of what all the nay-sayers think and say, we have indeed gotten a first sniff that some of the metal AM end users may be about to do just that. This stock has moved up because there is the first taste that PR3D can get the job done, SGLB may be close to getting sales, close to being incorporated into printers, close to being used in getting things moving in the industry.

The SGLB team, Ron Fisher included, are as close to the action as anyone. They have direct line contacts with titans of industry. And they are seeing the landscape up close. They saw the demand/functions of IPQA changing day by day. It was never the case that any IPQA system didn't sell because they didn't work( well, some claimed solutions are just a shell of what others can do). It was always that the metal AM field was not ready for IPQA because IPQA would not have enabled the AM field anyway.

All the best,
Silversmith

JGault,

Velo3D has been an interesting study. They only late last year launched their Sapphire printer machine. The machine is currently only capable of printing in two powder types. They have some interesting ideas about how to print parts though. But they are only marginally in the same sand box as SGLB. They have what they call 'closed loop' and melt pool monitoring in the same manner as we have been hearing about for a couple of years now. It is entirely specific to their machine only. And the 'in situ' aspects of their system are not directed at providing IPQA arbitration and certification. They are using it only for process control. As such, they have no way of inferring post process material characteristic. Basically, they must have their version of a closed loop system in the printer to even be able to print anything successfully with their printer. They are pushing the envelope of printing capability, no doubt about it, but it is in the front end simulation and printer capability realm. Still, they warrant watching.

All the best,
Silversmith

Thanks much Windbag.

All the best,
Silversmith