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IIVI - listened to the CC. Nope. The only blemishes were eV (used in bone and other scanners) and inventories up slightly. Next year's projections are slightly lower than consensus. It's greed and fear.
Could be deader than usual too as VLOC (their infrared optics subsidiary) is located in Florida. BTW - I've been short several weeks and sold covered puts too soon.
IIVI - orders growth dipped is my guess.
ALGN
helped myself to a 3rd serving at 9.75. I am getting stuffed. Expectations must have been a pie in the sky. It's just a baked potato.
yikes - ALGN. 2005 expectations lowered back to where it was earlier this year.
I added 2 servings.
Zeev - do you have OB on NVLS?
entered ALGN @14.98
Zeev - do you have OB on NVLS?
entered ALGN @14.98
~50 yrs seems to be a constant. Reserves will at least double if current prices linger beyond next year. Notice that 2004 Canada reserves went up by almost 200B barrels without any additional significant discoveries. Short term, oil will hit whatever it takes to compress consumption - max pain. $50/barrel is not getting very much reaction so maybe gasoline needs to move to $3/gal and beyond to get the message through thick skulls.
sold ALGN +1.03
backlog is about 20 units -- roughly guessing 2007/8 system sales of 80 units and 140 installed units (disposables) base gives ebita of around $1 for 35M shares outstanding. that gets you to ~$1B market cap. will have to see how fast they can get the systems out the door and installed. 1 year of history would definitely clear some of the fog.
zeev ... along the lines of lscp givn isrg etc... take a look at STXS. they have a nifty system for steering catheters. takes a while to set up in the cath lab though. MMs are playing games again going through my limit and not givng me any shares. i moved my limit and it's taking forever to nibble a pittance. entered ALGN.
isrg - not enough of a discount (to add) compared to others competing for the same capital budget. business will grow but it aint a cake walk. i've an OB below 200 dma.
9/10 100K shares open market purchase by Moore is sizable.
LCAV risks according to Taglich:
Risks
Competition
As laser vision correction becomes more widely accepted, the number of ophthalmologists who can economically
justify purchasing their own excimer laser may increase. This would increase the number of competitors, which
may have an adverse affect on LCA-Vision’s business.
Market acceptance
Another factor that could have negative implications for the Company is whether laser vision correction surgery
can achieve broad market acceptance. Acceptance may be affected by concerns relating to its safety and
effectiveness, general resistance to surgery of any type and the effectiveness of alternate methods for correcting
refractive vision disorders.
LCA-Vision, Inc.
Taglich Brothers, Inc.
6
Potential lawsuits
Since laser vision correction procedures involve the risk of physical injury to patients, the potential for lawsuits
against LCA-Vision cannot be ignored. Malpractice or other claims brought against the Company could have a
negative impact on operations. With the primary reliance for insurance coverage on the ophthalmologist, there
can be no assurance that ophthalmologists will continue to be able to obtain sufficient insurance.
Stock price volatility
Shares of LCA-Vision have exhibited high price volatility in the past and are likely to remain quite volatile in the
future. As this is typical with growth stocks, it is further exacerbated by current market conditions. Micro-cap
stocks in general have many risks that are not as prevalent in larger capitalization stocks.
Limited liquidity
With 13.4 million shares outstanding and 8.9 million in the float, liquidity issues must be considered. Average
daily volume has been approximately 200,000 shares. Significant trading in these shares could create large price
swings. Liquidity risk affects most microcap companies and can be characterized by low trading volume, high
volatility of the stock price and a wide bid-ask spread.
Miscellaneous risks
The Company's financial results and equity values are subject to other risks and uncertainties known and
unknown, including but not limited to competition, operations, financial markets, regulatory risk, and/or other
events. These risks may cause actual results to differ from expected results.
UR right LCAV is awfully cheap here and nice balance sheet too. 9% short interest.... Do you see any flies in the ointment? I feel your pain with the mistaken trade, been there done that, more than once.
I doubt they all turn around at the same time. The tops were were not coherent.
big oil finally stepping up to the plate:
>>>>>>>>>
"ChevronTexaco is proposing a new Faja project composed of exploration and production, a new pipeline and an upgrader to produce 200,000 to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of high-quality synthetic crude and products," Ali Moshiri, the U.S. oil company's president for Latin America, said.
The vast extra heavy oil reserves of the world's No. 5 oil exporter are too heavy to be processed by normal refineries. Orinoco oil must be upgraded into synthetic crude or blended with lighter crude before it can be processed in overseas plants.
A deal for the new ChevronTexaco project would be signed under terms offered by Venezuela's 2001 hydrocarbons law, Moshiri said. Some foreign companies have criticized the law as unfavorable to new investment projects.
But some companies already operating in the Orinoco have said new projects could be viable if they are able to tie into infrastructure already built for existing heavy oil plants.
ChevronTexaco already is partnered with state oil company PDVSA in one extra heavy oil project, Hamaca, which is scheduled to complete construction on a 190,000-bpd synthetic crude unit in the fourth quarter of 2004.
>>>
Now lets see if somebody steps up to the plate on gas hydrates. There is 10^4 gigatons of that conservatively.
lscp - stock count and option grants were off. Once corrected, my estimated eps numbers are 0.54 0.92 and 1.15 for 2004-06. No other changes.
lscp - tried to reply in private but being a cheapy that doesn't work for me.
I have them doing 35K 78K and 132K fibers for 04 05 and 06 and corresponding eps of 0.61 1.03 and 1.29. Average tax rate ramping from 12% to 20% to 36%. All rough estimates.
LSCP - started nibbling @16.38 and looking for bigger bites. I think their eps run rate will approach $1 within a year and still growing strong. There was a Forbes article showing eps goes down from 2005 to 2006 to explain the price drop. I don't know what voodoo logic they used to figure that.
All the medical laser stocks are taking turns at the woodshed. Look at CLZR, PMTI, AVO, BLTI (blti worse than others because of miss). It's now LSCP's turn. I have moved my WTI range to $40 +/-5 up from $35 +/- 5. Problem is the majors are sticking with their $20 forecasts so oil may hit $50+ before the thick skulls inside majors revise their forecasts and start funding projects.
zeev, where is your OB for AMGN?
It could be an insurance policy against a successful terrorist attack on the Aramco infrastructure or the straits of Hormuz. The biggest storage intake is China wanting an insurance policy also.
zeev, can't argue with your TA but BLTI is THE bargain at these prices compared to other (lscp, clzr, pmti etc...) med-laser companies. These panic sales happens a few times a year without fail.
I've been following BLTI for a few years now. My mouth is full of metal so it's too late for me but do your kids a favor go to a waterlase dentist. They are still teaching turn of last century GV Black techniques in dental schools and I don't want my kids to go through that when there is high precision techniques available at only a slightly higher cost. My laser dentist doesn't charge more than other dentists. It's just another tool.
See
http://www.pediatric-dentistry.com/index.html
http://l2.espacenet.com/espacenet/viewer?PN=EP0525068
it's the 1991 patent. seems foundational. what do you think?
yes. I was referring to their 'green light'. Their other stuff is me-too and not well respected.
Dollar+ would be about 10X growth in procedures from this year. Possible - the limit on procedures will be training and not sure if they have the training resources in place to ramp that fast.
LSCP could be doing around 60c by 2005. It was a real bargain in the single digits but not sure about it here. What do you see as max earnings and when?
Niman is often opinionated and he is also right more often than wrong when it comes to his field of expertise. Here is another source that is troubled by the early declaration that all is well:
New Scientist report:
Uncertainty clouds Canada's SARS declaration
15:31 27 August 03
NewScientist.com news service
Worrying uncertainty has arisen in laboratory work aimed at deciding whether a mystery Canadian outbreak is related to SARS or not.
The World Health Organization, as well as the authorities in British Columbia, say the outbreak is not SARS and "has no international public health implications". But there is still a troubling lack of explanation for why several of the patients tested positive for SARS virus.
The northern hemisphere is now entering the flu season and thousands of people with respiratory infections will have to be tested to ensure SARS does not make a comeback. Confusing test results would make this hard.
The National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg says the virus that killed six people in British Columbia may be a cross between the SARS virus and a less dangerous relative. But the NML's findings are disputed by another leading Canadian laboratory.
Unique sequence
In July, residents and staff at a nursing home in Surrey, near Vancouver, started getting what looked like a cold. Ten elderly residents developed pneumonia, and six died. Such deaths are not particularly unusual, and the symptoms of the victims were not typical of SARS. But tests were still run as a precaution.
In eight of the patients, using the PCR technique for amplifying fragments of genes, the NML found a sequence of 235 base pairs identical to one in the "M" gene of the TOR2 strain of the SARS virus that was responsible for the outbreak in Toronto earlier in 2003.
In another sample, they found a 589 base-pair sequence identical to one in the "N" gene of SARS, including a sequence not known in any other virus. "SARS coronavirus is pretty unique," says Tim Booth, head of viral diseases at the NML. The team also found that antibodies from recovering patients in Surrey bound strongly to SARS proteins.
But last week the Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver, the lab that first sequenced the SARS virus, announced it could find no gene sequences similar to SARS in the patients. Caroline Astell, at the GSC, told New Scientist that the lab found about 1000 base pairs in three separate fragments which were 97 per cent identical to regions of the N and M genes of OC43, a virus that causes colds in people and belongs to the coronavirus family most closely related to the SARS virus.
The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver also saw traces of OC43, but not SARS, and also found no SARS antibodies.
Viral hybrid
The different results could be explained if the patients were infected by both viruses, says Booth, or a viral hybrid of SARS and OC43. Another possibility is that the mystery virus is a previously unknown relative of both SARS and OC43.
Evidence that SARS may indeed have many previously unknown relatives was announced by WHO in Beijing last week. Chinese scientists have discovered viruses in many birds and animals that test positive for SARS, by both PCR and antibody methods. Usually one virus does not infect many different hosts, so these could represent a whole range of SARS-like viruses.
If this is the case, great care will be needed to monitor them, warns Booth. But this will be difficult without reliable tests. Astell says she cannot yet explain why her lab and the NML got different results.
The two labs used different fragments of viral genes - "primers" - to get their PCR results, and are only now starting to exchange information that will allow them to try to replicate each others' results. It is not even clear yet if the conflicting tests came from the same patients.
If the NML is merely getting false positives, this could change our understanding of how the SARS virus behaves, as the NML was also the only lab to find evidence of the virus in people who did not develop the full-blown SARS during the epidemic. If it really has uncovered a virus that does not cause SARS, but can test positive for it, then surveillance for true SARS will be much harder.
Debora MacKenzie
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994099
re-emergence of SARS:
Henry Niman over at SI http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/subject.gsp?subjectid=53838
thinks that the recent Canadian flu outbreak and deaths can be linked by genetics to index cases in Hong Kong. However, the Canadian bureaucrats have claimed no links. If Henry is correct and SARS comes back with a vengence, what will be the implications for the markets beyond the damage to the travel sector?
Zeev, Along the lines of cybx givn lscp etc... check out isrgd. the boyz have been very rude to me refusing to show my inside bid. in fact went around my unshown bid hoping I didn't catch it. they are acting awful strange, well I guess not that strange
CYBX
Now there is a common one between us. where do you see the box? I am short a few puts on that one
Zeev, what's your OB for BU$$
Dip my toes into OSIS @15. Strange reaction to preannouncement yesterday -- release guided up.
OSIS looks cheap.
Zeev - $1263 was the total according to the PPO reimbursement form that I received. There was no out-of-pocket cost for us which means the clinic eats the rest.
GIVN -
PPO that my wife uses only covered $300 of her procedure and it took 2.5 hrs from start to finish. GIVN will have low penetration if my wife's case is representative.
Zeev - do you have an OB for GIVN? thanx
I just found the eigenvalue of 7.57575757. wait ... I cant find the symbol!!!