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If me and the bride ever get back down to Venice we all will have to get together for a drink or dinner or simply some bad tasting ocean fish.
I wish Ferris would put that much thought and effort into increasing the company growth rate from 20% to 30% and ensuring a market cap that is 5X revenue ala Axon (formerly Taser).
They could get $100million TOMORROW if they put the company up for sale. This is part of my frustration - they need to get the current market cap closer to market value. That is their job.
I think I will have to backpeddle on that. Now looking more like early September, perhaps the 8th. Heard it from other shareholders I've been keeping in touch with.
They likely are more reputable than Miller. Did you look up the other company cited in the PR as an example. Something like no revenue, more debt than cash......and (drumroll) - a 2billion dollar market cap! So if they work that sort of magic on them, me wonders what they can do with a profitable growing company with a great balance sheet and product line.
My gut says this goes much higher soon.
But my gut also says there is something big that we are all missing.
Why uplist to Nasdaq when neither the share price nor market cap would suggest an ability to do so?
Why retain a rather high end investment bank at this point in time for what should be a rather straight forward move?
Why haven't insiders been buying?
Why hasn't the company been buying?
And who the heck continues to dump shares?
Ferris better be ready for about a zillion very pointed questions at the shareholder meeting.
He also should be confident enough to host a true conf call with the Q2 results and allow shareholders to ask questions for 15 or 20 minutes like many companies do.
Bill....Your message implies that it was You that got rid of that 10k bid...meaning you sold into it to fill it? What the heck. Hopefully I'm wrong
Well done Schneid and Bill...You guys could take that sort of act on the road and make a fortune. Except this points out that we are all old farts since we know Ann Landers.
Anyone else find it somewhat comforting/encouraging that the shareholder meeting is likely on Aug 18th only a few days AFTER the Q2 results are announced. I think if Q2 were going to stink, the meeting would be earlier in August. It would be rather fun to stand in front of shareholders just a few days after delivering great results.
....or am I being too optimistic.
I don't know avocado, I would argue that there are things we can do about it, after all we are the owners of the company. Ferris serves at the pleasure of the BOD and we the shareholders elect the BOD. Easier said than done though.
VirTra is not the same as healthcare. Healthcare is an easy fix. Get the government 100% out of it and let people get their bodies fixed the same way people find ways to get their cars fixed.
Retail runs flawless - Great products, low prices, no government.
Car repair runs flawless - Tons of choice, great service, cheap, no government.
Grocery Stores run flawless - Tons of choice, cheap, no government.
avocado, The point you are making is obviously a good one and more truth to it than not. To be fair though, you are cherry picking the 30cents and could just as easily picked a much higher price which changes the percentages a ton. But again, the point you are making is a good one and should be remembered.
What I need to keep reminding myself is that while VirTra and their product seem obvious to me and seems like it has been around forever to me, they are still a tiny company and 99% of their potential customers have never even heard of them or their product. At some point they will break through. Usually this sort of thing happens when a company crosses the $20mil mark. I just hope they are capable of scaling up rapidly and handling the growth profitably. They will need a top notch operations guy when this does happen.
True Bill. That said, I really do not believe there is any sort of normal supply/demand market for VTSI stock. The daily trading volume continues to be about nothing and so up/down moves are entirely due to what 2 or 3 individuals decide to do on any given day. Quite a few posters here could crash VTSI to below $1 simply by selling all there shares in one day. Likewise, many here could drive this up to $3 in a heartbeat if they decided to buy 300 or 400k shares in one day. So even though this price and movement is driving me crazy, I have a hard time being deeply concerned about any of it. Though Ferris really should comment and they should get the Q2 numbers out asap.
Me too. I just bought 3k shares in three separate 1k orders to get rid of those at the 1.80 ask.
This is the time to buy shares. Yet we all sit on our wallets. The mid-May Q1 report was full of rather bullish statements...of course the problem is that Ferris also pumped shareholder value and liquidity and a share buyback when the stock was 90% higher just 9 months ago.
Seems to me Ferris and BOD LIED about both the share buyback and increasing shareholder value and liquidity. Hindsight is 20/20, thus the LIE is now obvious and cannot be disputed. Crystal clear. He LIED. Also clear that Ferris/BOD seem immune to pressure from shareholders. Also clear that IR Larry is out of the loop and has no direct contact to BOD or special insight into VirTra.
It is frustrating because there are "free" actions the company could take in order to take pressure off the stock and make their shareholders a little happier:
1. Preannounce Q2 results RIGHT FREAKING NOW.
2. INSIDERS step up and buy shares RIGHT NOW.
3. Issue a business update PR RIGHT NOW.
4. Company start using the APPROVED buyback RIGHT NOW.
I pray someone swoops in and steals the company before Ferris and BOD even knew what hit them.
I hadn't scrolled through all the updates on the govtribe website in a long time, so tonight I did! Doing so will sure make one feel good about owning VTSI.
I think the current Jul/Aug/Sep quarter is going to be big. Big YOY revenue increase and a really nice EPS number. It also looks to me like the just completed Apr/May/Jun quarter will be significantly better than last year.
Scrolling through all those orders really does illustrate the power behind a large installed base and how that could really snowball into accelerated revenue and EPS growth.
Awesome time to be buying the stock.
Are you going through some sort of chemical induced withdrawal? That was a bizarre rant.
In these hick areas it IS necessary. We hire some decent cops but plenty of chip on the shoulder poorly trained yahoos as well. They need training more than anyone.
Selling SIMS....Bill, In the one tiny little insignificant State in which I live - Wisconsin, there is the opportunity to sell literally several hundred top of the line VirTra systems. There are 72 counties, each with a County Sheriffs dept. In my county there are also at least 5 cities that could buy a system or two. My town is roughly 1500 people. We have a full time police dept. Squad cars, Squad pickup trucks, Squad Harleys. Spending a couple hundred thou on a system wouldn't even be noticed.
I also think that right now is a very optimum time to buy VTSI shares. Go back 6 weeks and read the Q1 release. Go back a bit further and read the "record order intake" PR.
Typical VirTra lead times are several months between the typical order received and that order shipping and turned into revenue. So it would seem that Q2 and Q3 should be very good. And remember, the comparisons to year ago Q2/3 are easy.
It is also a good time because there are at least a few shares available. When the stock starts moving up, there will not be any available (in comparison).
I know I express frustration here on many occasions. However it is narrowly targeted at VirTra's reluctance to use the share buyback and insiders seeming reluctance to make open market buys. VirTra continues to deliver profitable growth and a stellar balance sheet.
This drop from 2.25 to 1.80 has been on low volume and if Gregg is correct that some entity is building a short position then this drop is fully explained. Why anyone would short this type of stock is ridiculous but it takes all kinds I guess.
Where is short interest data published for VTSI? It is not on Nasdaq.com so not even sure how to find it.
So today was the perfect example of an opportunity that VirTra passed on. They could have used the people promotions as an excuse to issue a PR and comment on the current state of the business. The new exec could have commented and given out some timely info. But no.
So, obviously Ferris is quite content with a $25mil enterprise value. That might be the lowest valuation ever for a profitable consistent 20% year over year grower with a pristine balance sheet.
I'd much rather have a CEO who believed in the value of the business and wanted to drive it to great heights.
I was always lucky enough to work for companies that had stock prices in the tens of dollars. Felt pride telling people where I worked and what I did. When you work for a $2 company can you feel that way. If yes, then you should be fired.
One would think that the fact that several of us would be extremely receptive and vote yes to a buyout in the 2.50 - 3.00 range would terrify the CEO and BOD.
You guys is silly. The need for this type of training is increasing exponentially. Practice and Judgement training will never go out of style....avg law enforcement recruit is stupider today than 10 years ago. (And I feel stupider for typing stupider.)
Hey Bill, when did you relocate to a new planet?
I am coming around to your way of thinking Bill.
Twister writes with too much vagueness and innuendo (sp?) for my taste though I am starting to understand him.
Fishing.....more this Sat/Sun!
It would almost be poetic justice if some group or company steals VirTra in a hostile takeover at $2.50. I'd vote YES just to spite Ferris and the BOD at this point.
Not to quibble, but I think the decline is actually about 9months old at this point.
I am really getting annoyed with Ferris and IR Larry. None of them and none of the BOD even sent back a letter in reply to the one several of us sent to them in early May.
Ferris/Larry damn near broke their arms patting themselves on the back a yearplus ago when the stock was rising. Now when it is going down the toilet they clam up and ignore it and say they have no control. Ya can't have it both ways.
Why the heck aren't insiders buying?
Why isn't the company buying using the authorized buyback?
I liked the January PR about record order intake. I liked the May 15th Q1 report and what was said. BUT WHY NOT PUBLISH SOME GUIDANCE FOR THIS CURRENT FY THAT IS NOW HALF OVER! Their typical order has a lead time of a couple/three months so at this point they KNOW EXACTLY where this FY will come in in terms of revenue and EPS.
Maybe Ferris/Larry are the ones colluding with someone to intentionally keep the price low heading into SEC listing and Nasdaq so some buddy can get cheap shares?
See, that is the sort of crap speculation that this stupid low share price sparks.
Boy oh boy and I ticked off....but the rant felt good!
At this point the only way I would give VirTra a "pass" for not buying back shares is if they were to make some sort of acquisition within the next month or two and use their cash + some debt to do so. And if they do, it better make sense and better be obviously and immediately accretive to revenue and EPS.
Ah heck, between all the politics on tv and XO, you probably just had all the idiotic public officials on your mind whose salaries we do pay.....and get only frustration in return.
Ruffie, What on Earth are you talking about? You say shareholders pay his salary and the BOD as well. You cannot possibly be that misinformed about what it means to own a share of stock in a public company.
Shareholders do not pay anyone's salary. The only time the company gets money from the sale of stock is when the company has their IPO or has a secondary offering of new shares.
When you or I buy or sell a share, we are buying or selling from another party just like us that has nothing to do with the company.
That is why (for the most part) the only time a company cares about the share price is when they have an IPO or subsequent secondary offering.
You are right about the other stuff though, he is indifferent to us. I like your choice of that word, it is perfect. Ferris does not have to answer to shareholders but does have to answer to the BOD and the BOD does have to answer to shareholders as we are the ones that elect the BOD.
I don't like your last sentence since I strongly disagree with it. The window of opportunity is not closing. If anything it is expanding and expanding rapidly. There are more opportunities for VirTra now than ever before. They now have money to pursue most anything or buy a complimentary business if they like. Think about what at its core VirTra sells, it has nothing to do with guns or tasers or weapons. They sell training to improve judgement and decision making. The demand will only grow.
How many shareholders would vote "No" right now to a buyout at $4? Certainly not enough for the effort to fail. One would think that would be enough to put the fear of God into the CEO and BOD.
Your point about MGMNT making some open market buys of VTSI stock is a good one. BOD members do not own any significant amount of shares. Other than Ferris, no one at the company owns many shares either.
Market Cap is now $31.5million and enterprise value is about $27million. Both are still respectable but should be higher based on historical growth and expected 2017 performance. This means that neither Ferris nor IR are doing a good job for shareholders as one of their responsibilities is to help make sure the company is correctly valued by the market.
Pressure needs to be applied to Ferris and the BOD. This is difficult to do. Here are about the only ways I know:
1. Shareholder group get alternative slate of directors on the ballot.
2. Shareholder group launches a private/public/hostile/friendly takeover of the company.
3. Show up at the annual meeting and make your feelings known.
4. Find some other company to buy VirTra (either friendly or hostile)
Many companies would look at VirTra and think they couldn't be bought because "Ferris owns it." Well guess what, he doesn't. 3 or 4 of us on this message board have a combined stake bigger than Ferris-n-family-n-BOD.
Is Ferris himself so valuable that if he gets hit by lightning tomorrow that the company would fold on Sunday? Nope. This is no longer a company in its infancy dependent on one person. Ferris could be replaced tomorrow and the company would not suffer (in my opinion).
Sort of rambling message. Oh well.
I think many of us have unreasonable expectations with respect to PRs. VirTra had a big PR and cc just 3+ weeks ago when they reported their Q1 results. The words printed and spoken were extremely upbeat and confident. Nothing has changed since then.
We all feel down and blah because the stock (not the company) is dead. I added a 1k shares yesterday and 2k shares today. I know, that is about nothing but I think with sentiment this low and the company this bullish, that I will not have all that long to wait for the shares to cross $3 and then $4.
Problem now is there are so many beaten down microcaps that there really are interesting buys everywhere.
sbudd, Have you contacted Mr. Ferris or IR Larry? I think if you either send them an email or give them a phone call you will get a response. They ALWAYS listen and ALWAYS reply.
I have had enough back-n-forth with IR Larry over the last year or so that I think he does "get it" and knows what needs to be done and how to do it. My personal belief is that Ferris has him in handcuffs for now. Maybe that changes when they are an SEC-reporting company? Why Why Why is that taking so long?
Every person has flaws. Some, like me, have more flaws than most. Ferris has done and continues to do a very good job as CEO with respect to building the company and running the business. Great revenue growth, great profitability and a great balance sheet along with excellent forward prospects.
Even the company valuation at today's $2 isn't terrible. It is above avg of market with respect to both PS and PE. We are at $2 because last years Q2/3/4 were very average. This years Q1 was good and if 2/3/4 are good then the stock should recover nicely and then some.
Yes, Ferris should be more of a promoter. Yes, he should talk off the cuff more and not be so stiff in ccs. He should also publish forward annual guidance of some sort rather than imply things.
What would be wrong with a simple statement saying..."FY2017 will continue VirTra's long track record of 20% year over year growth?"
What would be wrong with saying...."VirTra is targeting revenues of $50million in 5 years." That is simply 20% YOY growth from a $20mil base in 2017.
He should also fall on his sword over his recent (year ago) statements on shareholder value.
I believe Gregg in AZ was Ferris. Just a guess.
Hey Bill, please don't stop posting. You are one of the good guys in the world and it is fun/helpful/interesting to read your opinions. It is also tough to just stop posting cold turkey. I've tried it a few times but always come back! Hopefully you do as well. Cheers.
Interesting reply Bill. I did have a great weekend! I do not believe your take on Ferris is accurate. If he loves his toys, then he needs money to have those toys. Only way for him to make money is to run VTSI to $20 or $30 over the next few years. His salary is insignificant. His net worth is the company. He cares. I have yet to meet a CEO without an ego and a ton of confidence and love of money and power. I'm also pretty sure that if he doesn't produce, he will be gone. He doesn't own enough shares to be in control, simple as that.
As far as this is as good as it gets. I don't buy that either. Their track record of growth also flys in the face of your statement. 2 years ago they were sub-$10mil. 1 year from now they will be over $20mil. Simple facts. If you are worried about their products becoming obsolete, just ask yourself a simple question...Who is best equipped and likely to see what the next generation products need to be before anyone else? Exactly, VirTra. So, no worries.
The bride steamed two walleyes for supper that I caught this morning. Fabulous.
I wish I personally knew Mr. Ferris so I could have a sense of what he truly loves to do. If it is to build/run a public company then he is in the right spot. If it is to develop products or make use of technology or lead teams or if it is just sales or just marketing or or or, then he shouldn't be in his current role.
Maybe he should simply be the COB and CTO and the BOD should hire a new rah rah CEO. As COB Mr. Ferris would still be "da man."
The names you've previously listed for BOD would be spectacular. I'd vote for any of them in a heartbeat. I would also feel about 110% better about the current BOD if those clowns would buy some shares. In my opinion, they should all be fired/dismissed/sent to the corner for not stepping up to the plate. I wonder why Ferris puts up with that sort of crap?
Furthermore rmiller....roughly 2 years ago MR stated they would have 5 to 7 "units" open by late 2017.....1 year ago they said they would have 5 open by late 2017.....half way through 2017 they have only the 1 from mid-2016......clearly something isn't working as planned or they are blatant liars.....my sources say only Vegas might open this year and everything else is on permanent hold.....of course my sources are crickets....under-rated chirpers....great for trout though.
Sure wish there was something else to chat about.
rmiller, I have not been in the one single Modern Round restaurant. I don't know what you mean by "unit level" but the way I read their year-end report they lost a TON (relative to revenue) of money in 2016. Furthermore, their Jul/Aug/Sep quarter was pathetic and their Oct/Nov/Dec quarter was only slightly less pathetic. Net income was negative. They have said they need 1.25mil per quarter in revenue at this site in order to break even on a cash flow basis (yet still have negative net income).
You said it ALL with your 40% number for female guests. Why isn't it 55% like EVERY OTHER RESTAURANT on the planet and why isn't it at least 53% like the local demographics of Phoenix?
Good points Schneid. My guess is that big metropolitan crazy sorts of cities like Shanghai and Beijing and Tokyo and Dubai and Vegas and downtown Manhattan are the sorts of places this concept would work. They are going after a relatively wealthy customer. They also will never work in more rural cities like Omaha and Des Moines and those sorts of places where everyone has real guns and can go shoot whenever they want. But I'm just guessin.
I don't particularly like the vibe they are going after. I hate the MR website. That sort of look feel will scare away and irritate half the population (females) and even make rednecks like me feel uncomfortable as if I am in a place I don't belong.