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Technology Stocks : e.Digital Corporation(EDIG) - Embedded Digital Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Kerry Sakolsky who wrote (6383)7/7/1999 6:57:00 PM
From: JimC1997  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 18366
 
Quiet day here on SI.

I posted this on Raging Bull last night in response to several panic-filled messages from new investors:

The bottom is not going to fall out of this stock.

The big fear that most new investors in bulletin board stocks have is that suddenly the price will collapse without warning and they will suffer an enormous percentage loss of their capital. This makes them very nervous and suspicious of everything. Their suspicions sometimes sound like "bashing" but they are just looking for reassurance from the more seasoned investors.

e.Digital is pretty unusual for a bulletin board stock in that it has both a very promising future (based upon the realization of its great potential) and the high likelihood of a very solid earnings stream in the near-term.

The Lanier contract should generate at least $10 million (probably quite a bit more) in sales over the next twelve months. Due to their engineering fees, licensing fees and manufacturing management fees, e.Digital may realize up to 40% earnings on that revenue stream. Since e.Digital has large net operating loss carry-forwards, they will pay no taxes on those earnings for quite a long time. Therefore the EPS from just the Lanier contract could easily exceed $0.04 per share.

Positive earnings will also strengthen the balance sheet and attract additional venture capital and institutional equity investors.

Given the huge potential of its other business opportunities (Lucent, Texas Instruments, Intel, IBM, etc.) it is very safe to say that the market would expect no less than a 50% growth rate for e.Digital for the foreseeable future. This would, in turn, support a P/E of at least 50. (Most growth stocks are judged by their "PEG" ratio. This is the ratio of P/E to expected Growth and a ratio of 1 is most common, hence a P/E of 50 is expected for a stock with an earnings growth rate of 50% per year.)

OK, so with Lanier-derived earnings of $0.04/share and a P/E of 50, the stock has a "floor" of $2.00 and the realization of the other opportunities will define the "ceiling". How high is that ceiling?

Very.

This is why the stock has strength here in the $1.80 to $2.20 price range.

So, new investors, I hope this will ease your concerns about a collapse in the stock price. Focus on the long-term prospects and keep studying the implications of the wonderful technical discussions found on this thread. New press releases can only lift the stock price from the current levels.

Downside risk is present in every equity, but EDIG is fortunate to have the cushion of real earnings and almost-inevitable growth.

Good luck to all.

Jim



To: Kerry Sakolsky who wrote (6383)7/7/1999 7:04:00 PM
From: JimC1997  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 18366
 
Another message poster asked me to speculate on the "ceiling" for the stock and I posted this:

It really is impossible to predict an upper range for this stock. (I only used the "ceiling" term to correspond to my "floor" metaphor.) We have all seen internet stocks that attain incredible market capitalizations based upon long-term growth potential.

e.Digital still has a very small market capitalization (about $225 million based on today's closing price) especially when measured against the sales opportunities which may be open to it.

When you are dealing in multi-billion dollar markets even a small share can generate huge sales revenue and correspondingly huge market caps.

To me the unanswered question about e.Digital is what direction the company will take in its business plan. If it focuses primarily on licensing its MicroOS for applications by others the resultant revenue stream will be safe for quite a while, but may take a long time to build sizeable sales revenues. It would take a lot of embedded MicroOS licensing fees at $5 to $15 per item to generate substantial (i.e. $100 million or so) revenue.

Contract manufacturing and engineering (e.g., Lanier) produces the revenue numbers that causes analysts to pay attention, but is more subject to competitive pressures.

I suspect that e.Digital will pursue both avenues with vigor and let their success (or lack of it) in one direction or the other guide their future plans.

Once contracts are announced it will be much easier to begin creating reasonable projections.

I don't think we have long to wait for those.

Jim

(I posted these last two messages only to generate comment from others on this board. The Raging Bull message board is so heavily trafficed that it is hard to even read most of the posts, let alone discuss any ideas that might be present.)