I am sad to say my mentor has passed. After an almost two year battle with cancer he's moved on to a pain free place. To his wife, family, and friends: I'm so sorry for your loss. He was a great man, always open and eager and honest. Till I see you again, my friend.
One of the greatest to ever invest is gone. Let's celebrate him!
Moro announced a buyout today at $5.59 cash per share!
Just two weeks shy of ten years after I wrote my inaugural MRCR post "Looking for a sale of MRCR" hahaha. So my timing wasn't perfect
Calling all PGNT shareholders please vote!
In this proxy every vote really does count so please do vote, no matter how many shares you hold.
Sham owns about 29% of the outstanding. Given the two larger shareholders with 11% and 17%, this could really go either way depending on what they do.
If you own shares please vote. If you know other shareholders please encourage them to vote.
PGNT has been tragically undervalued for years and this is your chance to force the change you want to see.
This year I'm down 0.9%, dropping my CAGR to 29.8% since I first bought a stock 12 years ago. I've been flat for 4 years now and lost to the market 5 years in a row which is too bad. You can see the ups and down of penny stock land in my portfolio performance even: 3 years matching the market, 4 absolutely scorchers, 5 years of ho-hum.
You can file this one away under "cautionary tales for microcap investors." I first wrote about Vicon Industries (VCON) almost 7 years ago when the company changed symbols from VII to VCON. The stock was at a split adjusted $325.
The last trade was almost 4 years ago at $65 per share.
A couple weeks ago I received a buyout letter which made me for real laugh out loud with this line, "the estimate of value of Company as of September 12, 2024, was $0.00 per share"!!
I don't normally look at companies like this but Globex Mining Enterprises (GLBXF) is not what you think. They have an incredible balance sheet with $7.5m USD cash + $13.5m in investments. The CEO hates debt so they have none, carrying only a couple hundred grand in current payables.
As I type, the stock is at $0.75 USD giving a market cap of $42m. Book value is $24.3m with $20.8m of that being cash + securities. They own their buildings outright and carry those around a million. Add that up and the market is valuing the operating company at about $20m.
This is where it gets interesting because Globex is really a hidden balance sheet play. The company owns 252 mining properties and 106 mining royalties, all of which are carried at zero because the frugal CEO doesn't want to pay auditors for assessments. Your job today is decide if you think those 252 properties and 106 royalties are worth more than $20m USD.
I first wrote up ETCC in early 2019 with the stock at $0.58, having fallen from a high around $2 a year prior. When the company stopped filing in 2020 I held and waited. In mid-2021, with the stock in the $0.30's, I bought more as the company released new orders and told investors they would be getting current with financials.
With a market cap of $2m in Feb 2023 the company announced an $85m contract. As the stock spiked 4x up to $2 I sold nothing, thinking if that contract actually follows through it's going higher.
As the stock fell back below $0.50 I bought more. Fast forward to now and we have the stock at $1.78 with a $17m market cap. Backlog is $109m. The company has earned $0.09, $0.08, $0.17 the past three quarters, totalling $5.5m.
If you've ever wondered how Buffett found a stock at PE = 3 here it is.
Recently I was interviewed by Maj Soueidan of GeoInvesting. This is my second time on Maj's podcast and it was great fun. Easy to talk with Maj as we share a lot of the same interests in stocks.
We talked a bit about my history and process then got into chatting about a lot of different stocks. Some I've written about before like IEHC, EKCS. Some new ones I haven't mentioned much GSFD, SLNH/SLNHP. Maj also brought up a number of stocks I don't own like MOJO, TXRP.
IEH Corp (IEHC) was the second stock I wrote up on my blog way back in 2015. Coincidentally that post is how I met my mentor so it carries a special place in my heart.
The stock rose from $6 to $25 over several years of solid results only to fall all the way back due to Covid and missed filings. The stock only became tradeable again a few months ago so here's your chance with the stock at $6.30.
If you are a holder of Paragon Technologies (PGNT) stock please email me.
I am not happy with how much money and effort has been spent on OPTT. Also not happy that Sham's dilution proposal to use this way-too-cheap stock as currency. I will be voting no to everything on the proxy.
I started down this path in the stock world when the startup I was working for went bankrupt in early 2013. At the time I had minimal savings to support my wife and two kids so we had to uproot and move to get a new job.
That experience is what pushed me to expand my financial horizon to end up here. If you want to hear more about my stock beginnings, I talk about it in some podcasts here and here.
Here I am 11 years later and yesterday my project was closed down. Deja vu. Turns out the world of new technology development has risk :)
Surge Components (SPRS) is a rarety amongst my portfolio: well run and profitable. The stock sits at $2.40 giving a market cap of $13.7m. They have $10m in cash + securities, $40m TTM revenue, $2m TTM net income.
The board owns over half the company and acts intelligently. They build up cash and do the right things. In 2017 they spent most of their cash buying back half the common in a tender at $1.43. Since then they've built it back up from $1.5m to $10m.
No drama with this one and no shady management. Even I stumble onto quality once in a while.
We finally have HAUP financials! It only took 8 state law DE 220 demand letters, almost 4 years in court, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees!
It went all the way to the Delaware supreme court if you can believe it, and they ruled in favor of the shareholder: a company must provide financials to a shareholder asking for them and importantly the company is not entitled to enforce an NDA. That's some great precedent!
The HAUP CEO Ken Plotkin fought as hard as he could for years and I don't see why. As a wise man once asked, "Is he a crook or a person in a lousy business just trying to survive?".
Check out these lines from Plotkin's own lawyer!
"the undersigned believes it incredible that the Company will abide by any future Order from this Court or our Supreme Court"
"it is not clear to the undersigned that the Company has any credible intentions of paying the Costs awarded to Mr. Rivest, let alone the outstanding balance owed to Counsel or the appellate retainer"
"The undersigned has advised the Company not to relocate to a different jurisdiction or attempt to move assets, for that may trigger issues sounding in fraudulent transfer. Despite that advice, it appears the Company is in the process of moving, without disclosing its address to the undersigned"Can you imagine?! Your lawyer walks into court and says he's not getting paid, the court won't be paid, his client won't do what you say, and the client is trying to skip town. Insane
No stock talk in this post. Just an old car hobby.