Really hard to "compare" ampex as a company to many, or any, others, due to it's pretty unique nature. It's a tech company to be sure, but of what? 3 different product lines, each with varying demand, and 2 extra wildcards, that no one is factoring into the price right now:
1)tv broadcast and production line- only hi end product studios are biting, digital tv is a long off eventuality
2)DST- growing rapidly, but still a niche product, but best quality and speed in it's field
3)DCRsi stuff- this is to government, and so is independent of economy, but subject to gov't whims. this has been a drag this year
4)wild card of licensing revenues- this is the gravy train, but no one seems to know how to value it. Mitsubishi lawsuit over many millions is unknowable. only educated guesses are any good here
5)wild card of KM- who knows if, or when? But if the market valued AXC at 15.75 in wild may runup due to KM hoopla, the real thing should be much better if several big (3 looking now) manufacturers jump on.
My point is that this isn't like Iomega, which has 3 products, 2 disk drives and the tapes. It's a lot more complicated to value, and so I think the market has chosen of late to value it solely by earnings and estimates, of which 96 is forecast to be $.35, down from 95's .46, a bummer that has dragged the stock down, and 97's forecast of $.52, which would only justify a price of 10 or so.
Only 2 Analysts are publishing forecasts, thus hindering the stocks wide appeal. A market cap below $500M also effectively shuts lots of big boys out too.
A KM deal should do the trick of a higher price, ie higher market cap, great visibility, and make all of us richer.
Sentiment, sentiment, sentiment. Keep on waiting patiently, we could get popular again! I repeat my assertation that AXC will be on Individual Investor's magic 25 in a month, that should help the stock out with their 400K subscribers, last year they all took a hefty jump the week after it came out.
Meantime, we just dully watch our screens as it stays LOCKED IN to this $6 1/2-8 1/4 prison.
Go Ampex! |
