William & Pete
William you asked for my thoughts on the news release. Pete, you said 'the shorts will forever say that Presstek is overvalued.'
Here then are a few thoughts (at 4 am...), as they arise:
1. Glad to see something posted here worth reading, and that from Richard K. to boot - thanks, RK
2. Good to see the company is out marketing its wares, and getting some (more) acceptance.
3. I need to hear from Pierre and/or John Tooker how much clout both technically and $$$ their partner has in the field. I don't know much about that, but I never saw the name in all the technical posts that people put up here - or even the 'award winners' - but maybe I didn't pay enough attention. Also, the 'competition' section of the annual report should mention them if they have any clout in the field at all.
4. Gary Kao made several good points, one of which is that licensing a proprietary technology does not guarantee in and by itself that Presstek will make much money on this deal - unless the volume is very high (which because it is new would take years and big expenditures to accomplish).
4. Hmmm, thermal plates - lots of competition there... new technology, lots of competing big names with big dollars that have a long lead both technically and with an installed base of customers.
5. All-in-all it will take a long time to show up in the bottom line - and the stock price says it is there right now. In the meantime...
6. Its a new story. The 'old story' isn't working anymore (to pump the stock up).
7. I do think the company will be busy and making money. But I think of the 87 or so people at Presstek and even if each one had an IQ of 200 and worked 24 hours a day with unswerving dedication to Presstek, I still have to wonder how they would fair against the giants like Toray, Kodak etc... Don't get me wrong, I would love to see 'the little guy' succeed - that is part of our American tradition. But I try to reserve that emotion for my interest in sports teams, not investing.
Pete - I do not presume to speak for other 'shorts'. I can only tell you that in my case you have missed my point of why I am short. If the company was selling at $8 a share (20 times earnings) I would not say they were overvalued, and I might even buy some because they are not a bad company and they do have a legitimate product(s).
Ok, I'll sit down. - NEXT
|
