Vroom's business model is broken. They are losing money on each sale no matter what the purchase price for a vehicle. New CEO has his job cut out for him but Vroom is a used car seller after all - reconditioning and transport costs are very high followed by inventory - competing not only against Carvana, Auto Nation, Karmax, and 1000s of regular brick-mortar dealers nationwide, can't see how they'll ever succeed.

CVNA is just a zombie stock at this point with those hideous multi storey buildings that resemble vending machines for cars - gotta be the dumbest idea in the entire history of mankind. For that , their stock will be amply punished with near certain Ch.11 bankruptcy in the future.

Turnarounds usually take 3-4 years for a medium sized business. With the national footprint that Vroom has (or trying to become) it may take at least 3 years if not more. A lot depends on the economy not getting any worse than it is. Wall St. might crash markets totally if inflation keeps going up.

Why do you'll think Vroom can successfully turnaround its business? They have an aggregate SG&A spend of 190 million last qtr, and no signs of going down. At this rate they may very well spend the remaining cash pile within a year. What then??

Carvana CVNA is the big daddy that Wall St. is in love with. Their business model is an even worse failure, poised for a quick trip to ch. 11 bankruptcy court.

With VRM, just can't see how they can improve their unit economics when they kept on losing money per transaction, even when used cars sales were hot. Now that prices for used cars are coming down, how will Vroom make money in a high int. rate and high inflation scenario with lower car prices?

Wow, this has been hard hit like no other!! Market makers, early investors, traders all seem to have bailed on VRM right after that $74 peak post-IPO .... trading like its going bankrupt or is already bankrupt.

Does anyone think there's anything left in this, or just a dead carcass waiting to haul it away? 96% down since its 2021 high is simply amazing.

They have. Since the CEO is a seasoned veteran of LNG and has done this before, all the more surprising the numerous roadbumps that they have hit. Talk about lousy planning and terrible execution.

Doesn't look like banks and FIs are too eager to finance such a dicey project given the uneven global demand for LNG and uncertain long term margins due to their netback contracts. their earliest plan to get FID for this project was 2018 or 19, now its 2022 yet no sign of it

Fink, one more video has been released by Tellurian's Souki. He says they no longer need signed FID before construction can start. Planned start date is April at the earliest.

Very sketchy. It seems they don't have the bank financing lined up yet and they're just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, buying time. Thoughts?

With these delays in getting financing for Driftwood, its a very risky bet. Would consider buying it if it dipped under 2, which is where it was in the summer. They have missed practically all of their milestones for getting their LNG project started.

Could be a total bust as well due to the softening economy.

Thanks and appreciate your input. Agreed that 2020 covid crisis was not foreseen by anyone. The whole year, in fact last 18 months have been a waste of time, money, effort for companies and people alike.

My concern is how long does it take for TELL to wrap up a deal with banks. They're not the only ones chasing this pot (of gold). Many others started construction on their LNG projects and some even started exports. Field has gotten very crowded. Annova put an end to their FID, and Next Decade delayed theirs to 2H 2022. TELL, with all the previous delays, any additional hurdle or roadbump will absolutely destroy them.

The other issue is how exactly they plan to produce or acquire the feedgas (NG) needed for their Upstream operations . This is the pre liquefaction stage they essentially gather gas and store it. Anyway lets see how it pans out. 3-4 years of delays is lots of sunk cost and opportunities foregone!

What makes you think Tellurian will get financing for Driftwood? So far they've just managed to push out each deadline all the while diluting their shares outstanding.

First it was the pursuit of an equity partner called Petronet LNG. Then they couldn't keep up their commitment to Total who pulled out resulting in CEO Meg getting fired. New team, more dilution, still no sign of financing. Mid-2021, they tried to change course and go for upstream assets acquisition and sign new SPAs. Meanwhile others started and some even finished their LNG export projects.

Highly doubtful TELL will be able to accomplish in 2022 what they couldn't for last 5 years.

Balance sheet carried a retained earnings deficit for years now, shows up as negative stockholder equity. Yet the stock has traded around 5-6 before the pandemic, and now in the 3-4 range for all of 2021. Wonder if that is an anomaly - negative equity, meaning this is priced for bankruptcy yet no immediate danger??

What do you make of it? Good for a trade obviously but not worthy of long term investment. Anyone else got a different read on W&T's stockholder deficit and the high depreciation/depletion rate of their assets?

You said in March, and in May-Jun before summer that oil prices will rise to 80. Sure enough, WTI and Brent are both above $80 and headed higher, and its not even year end yet. But WTI? Well its half of what you had predicted $8-9!! Not bad but shows how stock prices often lag those very same commodities they support.

WTI has too many hedges in place and thats what is keeping the lid on it going higher. If those hedges come off in 2022, and debt can be brought down, then it might be a very different picture.

ziggy7796 said back on 16-Jul that KOS will/should be back to $3 in 2 weeks. Its now end of Aug., almost 6 weeks this Friday and its nowhere near 3 bucks. Trend is down in the short and medium term for Kosmos. It could very well file bankruptcy due to the sheer amount of debt they're carrying. Be very careful.

When a company thats NOT a specialist (deepwater/ultra-deepwater) driller, is overloaded with debt, has very little contract backlog and run by greedy management, decides to issue MORE stock simply to keep the lights on in lieu of revenues/earnings, its a sure sign of impending trouble. Major trouble. As in financial restructuring (out of court unlikely as bondholders will push it to the brink) or maybe reverse split to keep shares listed.

Either ways, Borr Drilling went public at the most inopportune time - just did not have enough runway to ramp up business. Bad timing followed by bad business decisions are a recipe for failure. Enough said.

Regardless of how the stock has done (rather poorly compared to other oil stocks in 2021, essentially flat for last 6+ months), its incredible how this particular CEO has used KOS as his own personal piggy bank.

Many may not know the KOS dude extracted $10 M severance pay from BP after Deepwater Horizon disaster. He was VP of exploration at BP then. As if that wasn't enough, he got a $1 M signon bonus at Petrofrac , he joined there in less than 4 months of leaving BP. Is that a sweet deal or what. And the cherry on top of it all?? He's been making at least $3-4 M per year in salary and bonuses at KOS the last 7 years. Compare that to his peers at Callon, Laredo, CDEV, SM and others. All of them pay their CEOs less than Kosmos, with the only exception being Matador. But then Matador's been a stellar performer last few years. As also SM Energy and Talos. They deserve every $ of their pay packets.

This guy's just been a ripoff and total disaster for KOS shareholders.... enuff said. Sad how corporate America preys on hapless retail which are actually their customers.

The guy's also on record in 2011-12 for saying he never likes to work on weekends, doesn't answer emails or his phone!! Talk about an ex-BP Chief-whatever being a workaholic eh? No chance

Feel vindicated when I advised everyone not to boy KOSMOS stock. In just the past few weeks, comparable OG stocks have outperformed this by leaps and bounds. Same applies point forward.

If you look up KOS past performance and read up on their CEO, his career history, you'll know everything you need to know about KOS. To repeat, avoid KOS when you can buy many OG stocks that will do good-to-great in 2021-22. Don't forget KOS worst in class assets, less than 25% ownership in all projects, heavy debt load and intrinsically worthless equity. A recipe for disaster and thats exactly how the stock has behaved.

Yeah alright great. You seem to have perfect entry and exit points. You must have a ton of fancy software, high speed trading desks and tons of resources at your disposal. As if anyone would believe.

Why do you post meaningless messages? That too to yourself?? Whats interesting about KOS and why?

This stock has lagged all the oil tickers in the 2021 rebound thus far, I would stay away from it. Its a wildcatter, i.e. they make crazy bets on way out assets that mostly turn up empty. CEO Inglis has been one of the worst in the industry, these are the kinds of gambler types that destroy companies. Reminds me of Oasis, Denbury, Gulfport and countless others that went Ch. 11 last year, with 0 accountability on the part of crooked C-suite management that often lies to investors.

Kosmos track record is just horrible, hence the stock is where it is. In prior posts, I listed some oil stocks that will do much better than KOS in the post-pandemic era.

No explanation. Many institutions got stuck with this in the Mar. 2020 drop after OPEC-inflicted damage.

If it was truly a mid cap, PPS should've been in $6-7 range at a min, maybe more. But its like an ugly duckling, seems to have some problem. And this goes back all the way to 2016-17. Could not see it trading above 10 at all unless you go back to 2014. So it all comes down to asset values, operational efficiency (read: positive cash flows + investor returns) and prudent management.

as you know last 6 years under the "lower for longer / forever" regime, oil&gas assets have declined in value resulting in meager M&A deals for oil companies. And frankly, I don't see oil patch returning to its 2007-08 glory days. Climate activism is one obvious reason, the other is excessive debt they all took leading to value destruction for equity and bond holders. Market has gone nuts over the tech, EV, WFH sectors thru the entire last decade!! And that is after it picked up and recovered from Y2000 dot com bust.

For those still in this stock, maybe a good time to switch or rotate to better performers in E&P. Kosmos assets simply aren't worth what they once were and will always be undervalued. Compared to other E&P like Apache, Devon, Hess, Ovintiv, Talos etc. this seems to be stuck in a trading range for months now.

Even during heydays of oil, Kosmos had the wrong strategy and poorly performing team running the company and its upstream ops. Ergo, one after another they kept hitting dry wells, and dwindled their opportunities. With the GOM acquisition, their fate was sealed so to speak. Large debt is going to be a cash flow burden they just can't escape. I doubt it will go up much more like the high flyers -- SM, AR, DVN, OVV, TALO, CPE, and even RIG, which is a driller but quite strong due to its backlog

What do you think are TELL's prospects given the latest PR they're going to first secure all the gas they need to produce to fulfil orders, before they start construction?

Was thinking of getting in after the Jan runup seeing as its the second venture from Cheniere founder Charif Souki. That one was a great success albeit many ups and downs, and he nearly bankrupted it twice during the mid/late 2000s .... thoughts on TELL? is it just another LNG wannabe or does it have a chance to dominate the already crowded export field against Sempra, Cheniere, Exxon, etc.?

So glad I didn't buy this stock. Been an underperformer from 2018, when they made the GoM acquisition and loaded the company with tons of debt. Almost forced into bankruptcy last year.

IMO Kosmos has one of the weakest mgmt. teams in oil&gas like XOG, Oasis and others. They take on more than they can successfully execute and they've never had a strategic focus. Hence the stock has been in the dumps for years and years with no sign of recovery. Its really bad when you issue lot more shares than your company is worth, and then you cancel the dividend -- why should anyone invest in it??

Luckily my SM, CDEV, RIG, HLX are holding up well and will outshine the sector in 2021-22 and later. Won't recommend KOS to anyone as I don't think it'll ever lose 'penny stock' status.

Also, if you want to do apples-to-apples comparison, check out Apache corp, Hess, Talos Energy, Vermillion and others that operate in the international E&P space. Besides they would more than likely been acquired by now had the financials, operations, performance been of interest to a Conoco, Shell, Hess etc.

Some acquisitions in the recent past:
Diamondback merger with QEP (still pending ....!)
COP acquired Concho Resources (bottom barrel paid for shale acres)
Devon acquired WPX Energy
Chevron acquired Noble energy (gas fields off Israel)

and of course OXY acquired Anadarko Petroleum borrowing boatloads from Warren B., and paying a sky high price trying to outbid Chevron... OXY is run by such numbbuts its unbelievable

Sure. No doubt Kosmos good for day or swing trading getting in and out quickly. I call it "bandit trading"

Don't like it as an investment though for reasons mentioned earlier. Also, someone on Stocktwits board was saying its the most investor unfriendly company in Oil & Gas as their performance has sorely lagged that of its global E&P peers. If you pull up a long-term chart, clearly the stock has been depressed for a while. Such stocks and companies usually don't make a comeback in my view.

Am more comfortable with small caps like CDEV, SM Energy, QEP, Helix etc. that seem to have much more upside potential. Good luck to you though.

Are you talking about 'KOS' or 'KOSS' (headphone maker)? That one is in the news along with GME, AMC, BB and others.

Not sure if Kosmos Energy KOS is a good play. Thought of getting into it sometime back but decided to pass, mainly because of massive float leading to easy manipulation and shorting of shares by hedge funds. Also disappointed that an NYSE stock cut the dividend -- one of the main reasons big funds buy in the first place.

I'm in Centennial (CDEV), Transocean (RIG) and QEP REsources; so far quite happy with all three this year.

Could be shorts, as the number of shorts increased in Feb to about 35.5 Mil (or maybe thats from Jan) . Also seems like stock dilution took place. Yahoo shows the # of outstanding shares and float has gone up from 330 M / 191 M float to right now its 387 M / 247 M of float ....

wonder why though when they haven't yet announced any equity partner for the Driftwood project. Why the dilution now?

Anyone got the scoop on why TELL is dropping so hard last few days? Seems like its a good company in the red hot LNG export market. Did they release some news thats causing the drop? What do the pros think hold long-term or wait to see how it unfolds in June?

Construction of Driftwood supposed to start by summer but given all the delays they've already faced investors are jittery and no one knows how it pans out in terms of getting the necessary equity partners and investment, completing the project, ready to store/ship LNG, etc. ... thanks for any info

Per the website, they still own and operate it. Its one of their remaining exploration blocks in Africa after selling off other assets there to Shell. They had 9 different Production, Development and Exploration assets at one time both operated / non-operated. Wonder what they're worth from a balance sheet perspective.

Their 2026 bonds are trading at full value and they just rolled over their short-term debt into 2028 bonds. How much would this company be worth if they were acquired?

What is this block you're referring to, is it in Gulf of Mexico or Ghana, or Eq. Guinea? They have production in those areas, and the only development blocks are off Mauritania & Senegal (Tortue, which is primarily a gas field). No exploration activity as of now. Sold off those assets to Shell last year.

Was initially interested in KOS but passed on it seeing as there are other better O&G plays out there. Yes, lots of US shale players went Ch. 11 last year, many reverse splits, so one had to steer clear of all that wreckage! Not an easy task to sift thru the gravel ... list is endless - Whiting, XOG, Denbury, Oasis, GPOR, Chapparal not to mention all the drillers. If KOS can clean up their balance sheet i.e. "deleverage" and cut debt, it could likely make a comeback esp among midcap oilers.

For whatever reason, its undervalued compared to Apache, Marathon (MRO), DEvon , etc. You may also want to consider better plays like QEP, SM, Matador MTDR, Antero AR in the small to mid cap range. Avoid MLPs they pay their owners first and generally scalp retail holders with stiff premiums. GL.

OMG almost bought KOS today but decided against it at the last moment.... whew!! Bullet dodged. Its got extreme swings based on the chart. Either that or its totally manipulated by shorts and other players.

Sorry but meself prefer to stay away from such high beta volatile stocks. Already enough uncertainty, political drama and myriad other variables to deal with in our everyday lives, don't want rhe added stress of a small cap oil stock weighing on me. Will stick to the widely held ones for now... GLTA

Thanks for the info and suggestions guys, much appreciated. Will now look into KOS in more detail.

Ziggy, me too... did just that over the summer with several oil tickers, flipping and sometimes daytrading for mere pennies. Oasis, RIG, Helix, Centennial .... decent enough gains too. But there was a LOT of risk there in not getting caught in one of the downdrafts like what happened to Oasis (Ch. 11) and Valaris for example. VAL went up a lot during the June spike, but then crashed and burned.

Unfortunately, many folks got caught in the wrong stock at the wrong time and lost a lot too. So it wasn't just timing but a bit of luck too I believe. Some guy on Stocktwits claims he lost $6 Mil on one stock alone -- HPR, High Point Resources. Hard to believe?! He sold his construction company several years ago and took up "investing" as full-time hobby in retirement, and he's not even 50!

CPE is still $1.39 only due to the 1/10 reverse split enacted back in Aug. Highly unlikely that CPE will scale the same heights as the other oil cos. because investors simply won't support as much of a $20 below-investment grade stock as they would of a $200 tech sector stock. Or for that matter a $2 penny stock.

That said, oil is indeed looking like it will make a strong if not so swift recovery sometime in 2021. Key barriers remain including global aviation, leisure, cruising, hotels & hospitality, and shipping -- these need to open up before oil goes up in a meaningful way and more importantly, stays at reasonable prices for the industry to be cash flow positive some years from now.

Any pointers on good Oil/Gas companies to target realizing that many are highly speculative plays right now.... why Kosmos? Great balance sheet, good prospects, value play, other reasons...?

What is your core position like, a few thousand shares, 10000 or more maybe? Appreciate any responses. TIA!

Let's see if this moron's proclamations come true in the next 3 weeks .... but if they don't would he face any consequences? Of course not! THAT is the beauty of it -- keep inducing fear in the stupid masses to serve the agendas of their (foreign) oligarch masters. Next they'll say that the total numbers have been "vastly under-reported" and other such garbage .... whatever.

The so-called "Institute for Health Metrics" in Seattle, WA has already been discredited after coming out with initial estimates of 2-3 MILLION deaths before 2020 ends. That place is filled with academic failures, foreign born dropouts and quacks from less than prestigious schools but of course no one ever bothers to check the credentials of these self-proclaimed "experts".

==================================================================
The US should expect 20,000 more coronavirus deaths by the end of the month, former CDC director says
Updated 6:06 PM ET, Sun October 11, 2020
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(CNN)Another 20,000 Covid-19 deaths by the end of the month are "inevitable," according to a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The estimate is based on the number of infections "that have already occurred," Dr. Tom Frieden said Saturday, during CNN's "Coronavirus: Facts and Fears" town hall.

Thanks for posting about RIG latest 8-K. What are they trying to do, using off-balance sheet vehicle to rollover their secured and senior secured bonds??? If they truly wanted to refi, why not do a buyback, or simply issue notes with a better revolver to current bonds and redeem them in open market?

RIG has been the most mismanaged oilfield services co. for over a decade now, by an uber-idiot CEO. If he thinks he can pull wool over bond investors, boy is he wrong. PIMCO will take them to the cleaners in a hurry. Think RIG is on its last legs (pun!) might have the rug pulled out from under its feet (double pun!!). And this used to trade in $160s and $170s little over 10 years ago....

Ch. 11 filing seems inevitable now for RIG with this latest shenanigan.

wow, Oasis is gone. The end sure was swift, left a lot of folks holding quite heavy bags. Oasis management essentially screwed not only its equity holders but secured and unsecured bonds too. Kinda reminded me of Weatherford and McDermott in the OFS space. But they had UK management for the most part, and they're even WORSE than their US counterparts when it comes to blatant lying.

Agreed, and so true!

"If these people were working they wouldn't have the time NOR the desire to run around and get into trouble."

Thats exactly what always comes to my mind -- who are these people, don't they have jobs, lives and careers, businesses?? How can they go around protesting, looting, rioting, days and months on end? The ANSWER -- professional protesters for hire (its true, check it out) and on the paid services of foreign agents from a country called H-ary and another called C-na... go figure.

You'd think that Clinton did away with welfare moms back in the 90s but guess not! 5 kids from 3 different fathers and you're not even 23 yet?? Whats up with that. Seriously hope and pray these dems are defeated soundly in Nov. or the country will sink further and further into anarchy and chaos. Can't stand all the rioting and looting any more.

So true. To date, there's never been an actual audit of the contents of Fort Knox either! Whether the tens of trillions of national debt is actually backed by any gold reserves, held in storage. We have to take the word of our government and of course, they're masters in the art of lying.

In the current situation, dems and socialists have shown such wilful disregard to the great institutions of this country, and are trying to flatten not the virus curve but standard of living for Americans so it resembles that of 3rd world banana republics. NY, NJ, CA starting to lock down again -- its unheard of in the annals of modern medicine, punishing millions of healthy individuals and also destroying their livelihoods. Not to safeguard their health but to prevent the less than 1% of severely infected virus patients from causing harm to others. THOSE are the ones that should be isolated / quarantined NOT EVERY SINGLE case that got infected!! The recovery rate for covid19 is over 99% across all ethnic and age groups for crying out loud. Biden has said all along he'll listen to the "experts" and do as they say, but he's got no clue WHO they are or what they're saying. Won't be able to name ONE of them let alone spell epidemiologist if asked. What is this country turning into...

Agreed, but thats precisely the definition of unsecured debt -- no collateral needed. Much like consumer credit card (revolving) debt is also unsecured as opposed to mortgages and auto loans. Also unsecured debt ranks lower in the pecking order than secured, second lien, preferred stock and in case of bankruptcy, DIP financing which enjoys super-priority when repaying from the debtor's estate.

Equity is meaningless for most US listed companies as their assets are mostly subpar. E.g. GM, Ford etc. -- are they auto companies or FINANCE companies?? for decades GM made no money from cars, but only from providing finance for buying its cars thru GMAC. Same goes for oil&gas. There was a company called ATP Oil & Gas that filed Ch. 11 the very next day of BP Horizon blowout in Gulf of Mexico. Turns out they had issued second lien notes on existing debt the day prior i.e. on April 18, 2010 .... the idiot CEO conveniently blamed the BK on Obama's then-declared ban on GOM drilling when clearly it was ATP that screwed up its finances, its operations and finally buckled under the huge debt.

As for, shareholders, they are routinely thrown under the bus because the BK laws are crooked and collusion extends to courts, restructuring lawyers, advisors etc. that feast off the carcasses of failed companies. Its a happy system for those that know how to profit from it, and retail stockholders are not "in the money" almost 90% of the time, unless they are buying blue chip banks or tech stocks, for which you need to be ultra-rich to begin with. And then why would anyone invest in equity and not real estate. US equities are a pure gamble, plain and simple, and the odds are always stacked against small investors.

OAS had been in the hole for a long time, so Ch. 11 filing was fully expected. That said, managements of most US companies are dishonest with their shareholders about their companies' performance, lying repeatedly. Most earnings reports and calls are hogwash even though chock full of standard disclaimers and boilerplates that are meant to protect the C-suite from litigation. They treat these companies' balance sheet as their own private piggy banks, stuffing it silly with debt that most of them could never repay.

Oasis knew this was coming from even before the Covid induced crash in March. Who on earth will refinance shale company debt, after the absolute disasters of Chesapeake and Sandridge?? And its not over until the fat lady sings........ probably middle of next year.

I-man, don't want this to become a political discussion but it does seem necessary to square with the ongoing developments in the world esp. as the biased US media absolutely does NOT report any of it.

1. As you may know, Eqypt, Jordan, Israel, Greece, Cyprus and couple other countries signed a pact recently to explore oil/gas in Eastern mediterranean leaving out Turkey due to its aggressive posture and trying to pit key allies against each other.

2. UAE-Bahrain-Israel economic cooperation deal is quite a big deal but hasn't found other regional supporters yet (notably KSA is still pushing its luck thinking it can win the current oil price war)

3. Then there's the new nexus of evil starts with Turkey, thru Iran, Pak, China ending in NK. All are risking their futures betting against US and NATO while aligning with China. End result if it becomes an extreme conflict (fully expected by Western powers) is the breakup of China into 4-5 pieces -- Western china where millions of Uighurs imprisoned, separate Tibet, and full country status to Taiwan/HK thats been denied so far.

4. Lastly, recognizing and presaging all of this, US and Japan have pushed for their Quad Group (US, Japan, Australia, India) agenda which was initially planned in 2007, revisited in 2017 and now firming up mainly due to how China unleashed this horror on the whole world. As of now, they're conducting joint drills in the SE asia theater and broader Indian ocean.

Yes, as a country US also has many transgressions to its record in last 75-100 years but when contrasted with how horrible China is when it comes to suppressing its own people, no comparison at all. The revolt bubbling just under its surface will eventually tear China apart, smashing all aspirations of global domination.

Take it for what its worth but the next 5-10 years could be very tumultuous to say the least.