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I agree with you 100%. Improving/simplifying the physical design and component sourcing and assy do have to come first. Basically automating/streamlining every process from order entry to shipping.
My frustration has always been that Ferris would never admit that he did not have the “company in place” to support a great or even average producing sales Org. This was/is a two part problem in that he still has no idea what a great sales Org should deliver and no idea what a “robust in every way” product really means. It sounds like they are starting to understand the product stuff….and like you said hopefully their attention turns to fixing their Sales Org.
Then 2.5 to 1 in two months! But now turning up.
This is just my opinion…..VirTra’s head of Sales (Mulcahy) does not know what is required to consistently sell product to police departments. He does not understand the hand holding required, he does not understand that 6 to 18months of courting is often required, he doesn’t understand that a personal relationship between the PD decision maker and a smart personable VirTra sales person is required.
I think Givens understands how to sell to the Fed Government but I do not believe he knows what it takes to sell a $200,000 system to a municipality.
Ferris and Givens ARE both smart enough to know that VirTra is not close to realizing its revenue potential. And I think that (now) both are smart enough to know the Sales Org needs to be fixed. I think in the past Ferris was hesitant to fix Sales because one good salesperson could have destroyed the company because the structure of the company could not support higher sales. Now it can! So my hope is that now the Sales Org gets fixed.
A good Sales Org also ensures the company will continue to supply it with best in class products. A great VP of Sales would mean VirTras products and R&D pipeline are always #1. In other words, a great Sales VP will demand that the company supports its efforts. Sales is ThE most important function in any company.
To your point, VirTra has most all the tools and they do some required salesy things well but others are absent and they still need to hire THE SALES GUY! And by guy I mean male or female and/or man or woman or any combination thereof.
It was an encouraging day, especially compared to the carnage in small company stocks today.
But I really don’t think you want 20x todays 67,000 share volume. 100,000 to 150,000 each day would be optimum. If the volume gets too high (or too low) relative to outstanding shares, it can make share price direction and sustainability independent of company performance over the long term (months to years).
You raise a good point about many countries pouring money into building up their militaries, perhaps that is why it was mentioned in the conf call about “working on a record number of big international deals.
You are right I am getting old. Will put my money to work in your state in a year or two. Either Manasota Key or Casey Key.
Annual revenue goes over $40mil this year and doubles next year. Again….I hope.
I do enjoy your posts and your personality! Where were you wrong? In my view, Ukraine/Russia are not relevant to VirTra in any way. Also, with any tech product, none will be saleable for 20years, they require continuous improvements and evolution. You were also wrong about todays stock action, todays low volume 3.7% drop was very small compared to yesterdays high volume 38% gain. Almost 5% of the stock traded yesterday, that is a big meaningful number.
Look, I will be the first to say $4 or $5 or $6 is all about the same to me. I am not here to nibble or flip for 50%. I am here for when the company realizes its potential. I want the company at a $300mil annual revenue rate and a $1billion market cap. At the current pace I will be 173 years old when it happens….but with the right CEO and tweaks to the sales org maybe it happens in 5 to 6 years….huh
Bill, Please pick up your phone. Press the numbers 9….1…..1, in that order. When someone answers, please read them this: “I fell on my head and need help.” Good luck!
….ok, sorry to joke and I admit you have been more right than wrong over the last decade wrt VirTra results. However, stay tuned until after the Q1 report. Also, while you have been mostly correct, the reasons you state are categorically incorrect.
After a few brief forays on my part into those sorts of worlds, my conclusion is that there are not ANY, not even ONE, real person(s) behind any of the names/monikers/posters. I believe it is almost all 100% computer generated AI garbage meant to facilitate the speedy transfer of money from the honest/naive/inexperienced/greedy/stupid to the account of the Mastermind behind all of it. Not sure who it is, but the investment world would be a better place if he went away forever.
By now you know I am exaggerating a bit to make the point I am making but I truly believe this to be the case. It also would not surprise me in the least that the Mastermind is some sort of dark ops superteam within the bowels of a large legit enterprise with a household name we are all familiar.
.....ok, maybe I read too many suspense, crime thrillers
Maybe, maybe not. In my view both Twitter and Stocktwits are useless in every way. Almost every post is auto generated and lacks any level of thought or perspective.
My guess is most of the volume was from institutional buying. Likely 2 or 3 small funds. We might get some idea when the June-end institutional holdings are published. Sellers were mostly retail traders.
If there were thousands of eyes on this, they wouldn’t all disappear in a day.
“Pretty close”….ha ha, made me laugh!
I was only wrong about price, volume, and shape of the daily chart.
What an encouraging day! 470,000 in volume is astounding. I like it cuz it tells me there are enough people paying attention so that if the company can start stringing together Q after Q after Q the stock will reflect it. No real dips all day.
It would be fascinating to know who was buying today and who was selling. The path to $30 is now simple:
1. Q1 at least as good as Q4.
2. Significant insider buys.
3. Q2 over $10mil.
4. Big Military award in Sept or Oct.
5. Q3 that doesn’t suck.
The volume is ok. 1% of all shares is only 111,000 shares and it is already close to 200,000 for the day. So, since late Friday volume is nearing 3%. It all strikes me as very orderly. The one nice thing today is most of the bigger trades are buys. Single buys are taking out multiple asks. If anyone thinks any of this means anything, please do not as I'm not a technician.
The one surprise to me today was that so far there has not been any attempt to "close the gap" between Friday's close and todays open. Normally that would bother me but given all the afterhours volume Friday and premarket volume today, perhaps there really is not a practical gap that needs to be filled.
What would provide a bit of rocket fuel would be large insider buys starting on Wednesday this week when the insider blackout ends. Need them from two or more insiders. Surely a couple CEOS, CFO, and newer Directors can step up....cant they?
Open…..4.45
Hi…..5.25
Lo…..4.28
Close…5.10
Volume…..213,000
Just fun guesses for tomorrow.
I think it gets to 7.5 by about May 10th.
I also think they have significantly improved their BOD.
That said, I do not like that Greg Johnson is on the BOD. I only met him in person one time and while he has always been cordial I am not confident that the financial/market/stock/structure advice he provides to the company is correct or even helpful. This may not be fair or correct, but the vibe I got from him was not good. If it were my company I would not want him anywhere near it. That is just my opinion and I hope I am wrong.
I also hope the current CFO is the real deal but the Q4 press release and conf call left me with doubts. She needs to own the financials. She needs to drive changes in the company to improve them. She needs to be a pilot, not a passenger. We will all know for sure over the next few quarters, I hope she succeeds and becomes as important as Ferris and Givens.
Joelawyer….You have hung in longer, and with a very large position, and in a far more loyal way than me. I respect that a ton. It is starting to look much better now even though the stock is still left for dead.
Right now it feels like they have the right mix of leadership at the top and it feels like the foundation is much stronger/sustainable. What I mean by that are things like the ERP system, the Orlando site, the Volumetric thingy, and to a lesser extent the backlog/pipeline.
The only thing that truly still leaves me with concerns is their seeming failure to fix/improve their sales Org. Mulcahy should have been replaced and not recently promoted. The Regional Sales Managers are simply not producing likely due to a lack of both corporate support and not filling those RSM positions with the right sort of person. The right people in a RSM position would drive and force corporate to provide the support needed.
I have made so many predictions over the years that one was bound to be close. Usually I'm too optimistic so was happy to be low on the eps. You may or may not believe it, but when I originally wrote that post I had written in 13 - 14 cents but then I changed it to the 6 or 7 before hitting the post button. In hindsight I'm glad I made the change because it is never good to make a guess that nails the numbers since it raises questions.
If you haven't listened to the cc, please listen to the replay. The honesty, openness, and optimism was wonderful.
I will be buying more shares on Mon/Tues/Weds.
The CFO has a great voice.....but she talked about "balance sheet" without telling us the debt as of year-end. If you are going to go to the trouble of telling me the Cash balance, then also tell me the Debt balance. Not mentioning debt comes across to me as sneaky.
I wonder if Bob wanted to kill him when he sorta threw Bob and staff under the bus for the screwiups and mistakes of a year or two ago? If I were Bob I woulda been a little pissed off. I love that Givens said what he said since it is 100% true and needed to be acknowledged.
So far 55,000 shares have traded after hours today after the market close. That is pretty impressive.
Imposter!
It is a good report!
The optimistic tone of the press release also bodes well since Q1 is already in the bag.
Looks like they could push $40mil for 2023.
Stock should make a meaningful move!
That would be great!….misery love company
That reminds me of one of the funniest local TV news bloopers I saw a couple decades ago. It was on a Detroit TV station’s 6pm weekday news.
The previous day the weatherman had predicted snow for Detroit but the storm missed and they didn’t get any. So when it came time for the weather report in the next day’s news, the pretty female anchor turns to the weatherman and says…..”So, what happened to the 8 inches you promised me last night?”
That was a true blooper, they paused briefly, and started laughing on air.
Hi Joe,….now it’s a party! Still looks like the middle of winter up here in Marathon County. Hope you are well.
This like a class reunion! Good to read your post Bill, not the content, just that you posted;)
VirTra's valuation ratios are not low as compared to other small caps I buy. Most everything I buy these days have PS ratios of 0.1 to 0.5 and are trading way below book value. Many have Ev/ebitda ratios in the 3 to 5 range and all generate significant free cash flow. The most classic right now would be stocks like JOB and SUP. As you know, none of this is a science and good ratios do not necessarily equate to a good stock. JOB is proof of that! When I look at VTSI I see a PS approaching 2 and stock trading way over BV, so for me that is usually enough to get me to walk away but with VTSI I keep buying because of the potential.
4th Q....my two bits.....The results will not matter to the stock at all because by the time they announce Q4, Q1 of 2023 will have already finished. Those Q1 results in mid-May WILL matter. Given the light Q3 and decent backlog my expectation is a Q4 of $8.5million (slightly above the year ago $8.4million) and EPS of about 6 or 7 cents. I expect Q1 in mid-May to be a bit over $10million with EPS of about 10cents.
I’m just happy you are still here and posting.
I am curious why you consider it a deep value play?
My take on deep value is this…..Usually that sort of terminology is for stocks with extremely low PS, PB, EV/ebitda, PE, etc. In todays small cap universe VirTra is rather expensively priced by every one of these ratios. They do have a better than avg bal sheet and super clean capital structure. I still characterize VirTra as a “story stock” since the only reason I can justify owning it is based on its potential. Even it’s top line growth rate is only average for a company this size.
Who is Richard?
Wow! Congrats and Happy early 80th BD! That is no small accomplishment for a male. I will now have a couple snorts of Crown Royal Vanilla on your behalf!
Just a Ferris show….thus the crappy post-presentation stock reaction.
99% crap against the wall. The 1%…..
I was told by a Midwest snowbird that the Orlando office has been mostly closed for the last several weeks. I was also told by a potential activist who participated in a Roth meeting/presentation that Givens did not contribute. Not sure what to think.
Has Givens left VirTra? Since no 8K I would assume he is still there.....I mean, VirTra always files on time with the SEC.....yet another wtf.
How stupid are Ferris and Givens?
They announce Q4 and full year 2022 when 2023 is 25% finished. They wait the full 90days allowed after year end.
Then they do it on a Friday afternoon when absolutely no one notices or cares.
Look at the great reaction in the stock following the investor meetings earlier this week.
During the upcoming conf call they will refuse to offer guidance on Q1 even though it has finished.
Well done!
ON A FRIDAY? AFTER THE CLOSE? ON LAST DAY OF THE MONTH? WTF?
Interesting and helpful! Way better than VirTra stuff.
That was her task last year.
If VirTra did hire Ferris’ wife, that is a really terrible decision and bad judgement. Even if she is the greatest accountant on Earth it is a stupid move. It basically neuters the CFO and an entire department. Just yet another stupid personnel decision.
The big move up has begun!
I agree with you. I do think the next 19 months will tell the tale one way or the other. Either orders and revenue explode upward or more of the same. If the later, then the stock is correctly valued now. If the former, then it could be a 5 bagger from here.
The guy selling shares yesterday and today was an idiot. Q4 results will be out in about 3 weeks and Q1 6 weeks after that. At $4.25 the enterprise value is about $39million. About right for a lumpy boring $27mil 2023. However, if we see a couple strong $10mil quarters and they get a decent Military contract then one can easily justify a valuation 3x that of today.
I know I post a fair amount of bs here and only do so to annoy a certain CEO oh.
I did buy more shares again today not that it matters.
With all these shares I’m getting I’ll be in that Board room in no time.