Great volume all week. When was the last time MPRS traded 3 million shares in a week without an earnings report or widespread takeover speculation? The simplest explanation is a mutual fund or wealthy individual is taking a meaningful position. Conceivably, one entity may have purchased 2 million shares this week for about 4 million dollars. What is impressive is the consistency of the rise all week long. Unless Worms and Duels numbers are bigger than anyone expects at this point, there really isn't any news coming from the company that would account for a 50% rise in the stock in one week, which is why this buying is an event in itself. M1 and URP coming out plus the OEM deal show progress, but given the cynicism surrounding MPRS and the expectation that these two games would be out this quarter, I don't think they alone account for the rise in the stock price. The buyer this week had a plan, IMO, to buy in bigtime, and executed that plan all week because they felt the company was severely undervalued.
A less likely possibility is that an entity is accumulating a 10% stake in the company prior to a tender offer. MPRS does not want to sell at anything resembling the current price, but a tender offer of $4 a share would be tempting for many. It is foolish to make a tender offer without accumulating a significant position to begin with, and I mention this as an outside possibility only because it is one case that would explain all the buying long before the company's biggest potential titles come out.
There is still no justification for the current market cap of app. 60 million except fear the company will go out of business soon. Any investor who believes MPRS will get its games out this year should be willing to pay $2.25 and stick it out until the numbers roll in later this year. Short term, who can say? I don't think any major titles are likely to be released after M1 and URP until at least late May. If Worms and Duels hit your roughly 200K figure in the U.S. combined, and M1 and URP sell 250K this quarter, we are still looking at a loss of greater than .10 per share. How that will play with a company with a still severely depressed stock is beyond me.
On the question of losing developers which has been discussed on this board, I think we are out of the woods near term. It seemed to me in December that this would be the only way the company would be unable to produce its titles. By in large, the developers stuck, and from what I can tell they are as a group quite content producing their games at this time. One producer described himself and his crew to me in S.F. in February as "geeks who can't believe they are being paid for this." Well, with things looking up, they can also look to make a great deal of money off the appreciation in the stock over the next nine months, and since the options vest monthly over a period of 5 years, I think the key people in the workforce are here for awhile.
Any predictions on next week?
Snake |
