Here is a post I wrote in December. I believe it still applies and is worth reading when people get depressed with the low stock price............
To: Dixie7777 (6390 )
From: Todd Jensen Saturday, Dec 5 1998 10:25AM ET
Reply # of 7890
Although the stock price has not moved to correlate with all the developments over past few months, I am convinced it is only a matter of time. It is undisputed that e commerce is going to be an enormous market for the near future. The evidence for this is almost everywhere you look. PNLK is clearly positioned at the forefront of this paradigm shift. PNLK has formed numerous key alliances and continues to form additional ones as we speak. I was told by Taylor that several more are currently in the works. [ the Click alliance has happened since this statement was made] The quality and potential value of the alliances which have already been announced are obvious. I think it is interesting that sometimes people get concerned that the company may not really have their act together and have at times been concerned that this was all a scam. If you stop to think for a moment about all this it becomes clear that there is no reason for concern.
It is likely the case that most of the investors have not done an extremely high level of due diligence such as personally speaking to all the company executives, visiting the company, studying the business plan, and scutinizing the financials. I am sure that part of this is because investing is only a part time activity for most people and they have full time jobs with other obligations to attend to. However, does anyone think that the key alliances which have "signed on the dotted line" have been as lax as many investors in their dd? What is the chance that well established agencies in the import/export business etc with reputations to uphold would "get into bed" with PNLK without having thoroughly investigated them to confirm they knew what they were doing and there was a good chance for them to succeed? Your reputation in business as in all of life is a very important commodity to protect. If these companies were sloppy in their assessment of PNLK, it will certainly come out in the form of the company failing to achieve their goals. This will inevitably reflect very poorly on their associated alliances like the NCBFAA and Shira Trading. I, for one find this scenario extremely unlikely. I laughed when I read a post a short while back which said in reference to the Shira alliance, "the Israelis are not fools". I would say that is an understatement if ever I heard one and I don't think you would be able to find any thinking person to disagree with it. That statement alone says a lot about whether PNLK knows what they are doing. My point in all this is that even though the investors may not have personally done a lot of investigation, it HAS been done by people who stand to lose a lot more than the investors if they screwed up.
In reference to the membership numbers and financials. Taylor told me the other day that the audited financials were essentially done with some minor details left to attend to. She pointed out that the reason they selected Feldman et al to do the financials was based on their reputation not the speed they work with. I would rather have someone do the job right the first time than do it quick and sloppy. [as Ztect mentioned, the 15c211 is now coming out]
My personal opinion on the membership numbers is that the total is not very high yet. It is my guess that maybe they planned on trying to get members individually through the direct mail, e mail, and print advertising, all of which I have seen. It could be that these were not as effective as they thought they would be so the new strategy (which I think is much smarter) is to create alliances with the established groups in the import/export business and use them to draw in the membership. It doesn't take long to realize how effective this strategy could be as opposed to "cold calling" which the initial program may have represented. It has been stated by the company that there will be a specific module for the NCBFAA on the web site and this will take a couple of months to implement. I would expect this will come out as a part of v3.0 which is expected sometime after the first of next year.[now projected to come out in March-April] The Shira Trading release stated that they expect to directly contact 10,000 member companies in a short time. Now who would you listen to if someone comes along and says you should spend $360 for a service you never heard of; an unsolicited advertisement or a key agency which you know and trust as a member. The answer is obvious. We also know there are talks with chambers of commerce in Geneva as well. It somehow seems that Geneva is always the place where the international events happen that everyone else focusses on. It is interesting to think of what that relationship might mean!
Well, by now I think you get the point. The more I think about it the more I think that PNLK is going to work and be bigger than most people think but it is going to take some time. Business and especially big business moves slowly. I think the few months since V2.0 came out is hardly much time to really get the numbers up especially if there has been a strategy change. The important thing is that it is clearly moving in the right direction and it looks to me like it will get there. As they always say, patience is a key characteristic for successful investing and this situation continues to prove that point.
[so as you can see, things are, in fact progressing and the company is continuing to do what they say they are doing. I think that is all that counts, give it some time, how many businesses do you know of that became highly successful and profitable in less than one year?]
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