re:"befuddled as to why MRV is getting next to zero notice when Copper Mountain, Redback, Juniper and others, with products that are no better, and in some cases not as good as those of MRV, have market caps many times that of MRV - which incidentally has sales approaching $300 million."
my take on the situation is all 3 of the companies you mentioned are recent ipo's. the underwriting firms all did great jobs of "hyping" the stocks to valuations that are comparable to "dot.com" companies. none of the companies have track records-- good or bad-- from which to guage reliablility of management or predictability of earnings. at mrv, both of these areas have recent low grades. i'm not provoking a debate on this, but rather stating a fact which can be reflected in the stock price.
what will it take for mrv to remove these marks? well, they're well on the way... again, this can be seen by a stock price which has moved from 6 (on 3/31/99) to the recent 15 level. management is starting to take "shareholder value" as seriously as the shareholders do...
management is starting to give the street a little guidance-- not only for earnings and revenue, but also for potential action plans to be put in place by the management and board. the specifics have been discussed ad nauseum on this thread.... sure, there's a long way to go, but it appears management is heading in the right direction.
finally, execution is key. clearly, there is doubt as to whether management can properly execute their plans. rhetoric is cheap from these guys. the street was burned about 1 year ago, and they don't forget quickly when it comes to companies of this size. if you believe management can execute, it's still a steal at these levels, but there are clearly those betting against it.... |
