Especially for Newbies and Traders...
I have decided that the best course of action this weekend is to TRY and educate folks just a little in HOPES they don't mess things up for themselves and others.
Here goes:
ECIG was a $20 stock about 1 year ago. They have built a very strong presence domestically and Internationally with 6 brands:
FIN
VIP
VICTORY
VICTORIA (women only brand)
EL REY
VAPESTICK
They sell ecigs and vaping products (which are the future IMO) and these are on shelves at Walmart, Walgreen's, Sunoco, Rite-Aid, Pilot, Express Mart, High's, Circle K, Murphy's, and Mapco to name a few.
Over the past 4 months they went from over $4 to 4 cents because of massive shorting due to note holders converting after a failed IPO. All the while revs have been Increasing qtr over qtr. Just a few months ago, their mkt cap was over $325 million. And this doesn't change due to a r/s
Because of this "death spiral", Dan O'Neill (of Molson's fame) and Phil Anderson were brought in to get rid of the toxic debt and restructure the balance sheet which they pretty much have done ALREADY. It's controlled growth from here as they will not let the mistakes of the past CFO be repeated.
The one thing Brent Willis (CEO) has done through all this was continue to grow the company through acquisitions and better distribution deals (Murphy's is an example). He really has done a very good job IMO which is why our market share (especially Int'l) is quite large. We grew very fast to gain that edge and they never expected the massive shorting that came about. Some note holders were real SOBs which compounded the problem.
So, this once 325mil+ mkt cap stock is now a $48 million mkt cap with revs likely to be around 55-60 mil for 2014 and 180-185 mil for 2015. The o/s = a/s are locked at 300 mil and a r/s was approved by shareholders but not enacted yet. So that is where things sit - they got beat up and bloodied so badly BUT survived and are coming out of the coma. Getting stronger every day and is not your typical stinky pinky.
SO longs challenges to fight through are uneducated traders, short attacks, and MMs manipulating this stock which has been unable to break through 20 cents. Q4 numbers are due out Monday 3/16
