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Very quiet here, especially for such a big market cap company that has been mentioned to challenge entry into the FTSE 100! Up 11% today so far. They've kept the divi (thank you very much) but have excess of £1billion debt and £250million+ cash....Any thoughts on general prospects, company strategy, SP in 12 months?
Perhaps one of the few companies that will not be affected by the virus as protection for cyber-attacks will increase dramatically during these lock-downs everywhere in the world.
I agree the Jumpshot affair was messy and all its consequences, but the current price level is beyond comprehension.
12 months from now the company will still be generating massive revenues (even if revised) and good EBITDA.
No business of that size is perfect through its journey.
You mean the virus won't effect the anti virus company. I think AT has a point or two. Aside from that they did actually lower their target for next year and the debt that might have been paid off by the sale of Jumpshot obviously won't happen . Loss of earnings and impairment for having to buy back Jumpshot and scrap it don't add any positives either.
With the current turmoil in the markets, this should be now one of the strongest stock on the LSE.
No virus effect will impact it in the short/medium term.
So I'm guessing your short Avast then......
AVST SENTIMENT ALALYSIS ON A MALWARE DATA THEFT SCANDAL AND SHARE PRICE CRASH
CORRECTIONS PREVIOUS POST.
Computers read the news and understand it, but also understand emotions. That analysis pops out on traders terminals.
The magazine articles below are telling the truth about a spying investigation ongoing.
Since links are automatically removed, I include the text you can simply cut and past into a search engine of choice:
1) For PCMag: the-cost-of-avasts-free-antivirus-companies-can-spy-on-your-clicks
2) ExtremeTech: avasts-free-antivirus-harvests-all-your-clicks-sells-them-to-third-parties
3) Vice avast-antivirus-sells-user-browsing-data-investigation
That news pops out of traders screens and they like to know the facts not fables, NOT "stoopid money feelings".
The software that is most complained about here is AVAST (all versions), AVG, CCLeaner found on PCs Phones, tablets,
iPhones. FACTS: If you LOOK THEM UP YOU WILL SEE.
AVST SENTIMENT ALALYSIS ON A MALWARE DATA THEFT SCANDAL AND SHARE PRICE CRASH
I use AI Machine Learning to do Sentiment Analysis; news leads the market to a certain extent,
meaning computers read the news and understand it, but also understand emotions like anger and delusions like
"emotionally in love with a stock no matter how bad it is". Avast, AVST crashing is a classic in that field of study for off the
scale bad news, yet the "stoopid money" is ignoring the facts. Take magazine articles below, these are telling the truth
about a spying investigation ongoing and artificial intelligence natural language processing sets red flags popping out of
traders screens:-
1) PCMag: Avast spy on your keyboard and web clicks link:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-cost-of-avasts-free-antivirus-companies-can-spy-on-your-clicks
2) ExtremeTech: Avast havests all your clicks and sells them to anybody
https://www.extremetech.com/internet/305344-avasts-free-antivirus-harvests-all-your-clicks-sells-them-to-third-parties
3) Backed up further by vice referencing the above: Avast and AVG antivirus Sells User Browsing Data.
MOST IMPORTANT LINK
https://www.vice.com/en_us /article/qjdkq7/avast-antivirus-sells-user-browsing-data-investigation
4) Related to AVAST being malware REDDIT registers over 1000 angry people that know that their personal privacy was
violated.
5) Sentiment alalysis also analysed responses from Avast from the Czeck Republic and found the content of their writing
to be FALSE. For example they blamed the data thefts ON A VAST SCALE on jumpshot.com, but they own jumpshot.com
they closed down jumpshot.com and the anti-virus they own and wrote stole the data using state of the art web scraping
algorithms. Avast owns AVG and CCLeaner which was also spyware. They said that they have not violated GDPR,
unfortunatly GDPR was violated the first day it came into force and they deliberatly violated privacy on a massive scale
and have done this for many years. They said that collected data was anonymised, unfortunatly simple analysis of
the data easily finds the people, companies and machine identities from that data. They lied an that last violation
again violates GDPR. TROLLS HAVE TRIED TO HIDE THIS NEWS OVER AND OVER. The share price AVST being so DOWN is
not by accident - the "clever money" have sold and shorted, they know the truth and they also uninstall this malware.
This malware is found on PCs, phones, tablets and even on iPhones.
Listed on LSE in front of your eyes: WHY HAVE THE STAFF AT AVST SOLD SHARES AND EXERCISED THEIR OPTIONS?
Yes exactly inside knowledge! Yet another violation! TROLLS HAVE INSULTED OTHER POSTS ON THIS SUBJECT
YET FAIL MISERABLY TO PROVIDE ANY FACTS. YOU YOU HAVE THE FACTS NOW LOUD IN CAPTAL LETTERS and LINKS.
Over sold
Trouble with these racehorse tipsters is they tend to overlook some of the serious flaws and only had a day for the results to get a better view of true form. "For the full year 2020 we expect group mid-single digit organic revenue growth, and a stable Ebitda margin percentage," Vlcek added.
Weighing on earnings in 2020 will be a charge, in the range of USD15 million to USD25 million, related to the closure of Jumpshot, a unit which is mired in allegations of selling personal data.
So whilst the results are in line, increasing dividend and good cash flow, the shares remain quite expensive with the closure of Jumpshot which could have significantly reduced debt. The other possible issue is an unknown. Will they receive a fine for Jumpshot's activity as well as the impairment on next years earnings?
Great business but one big mistake to repair
with more potentially on the horizon. Could be a great entry point into a great company.
The drop today flies in the face of today’s Tempus spread in The Times..
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shutting-jumpshot-was-a-slam-dunk-decision-for-avast-79q5wn6mm?shareToken=e67fb8235f6e8ac10d156364358cce3b
Their advice was to buy..
I'm back in. The drop was ridiculous, but one broker got its wishes!!!
The SP fall was in response to PIs getting spooked by news article concerned about AVST's handling of data.
These articles last no longer than a day or two on the internet.
Then all that will be remembered of this unfortunate incident is AVST's commendably robust response.
A SP of 450 by trading end today is not unreasonable.
This dropped from 550. It has a long way to go up, and invariably the fastest ascent will occur in the coming hours and days.
Absolutely unbelievable and absurd that the SP reached this low given the company fundamentals.
Knee jerk sellers pushed it this low and will regret this dearly, this will bounce back in no time
Massively oversold
Quite. When will the hysteria stop? The guidance is still single digit growth and that Jumpshot will not impact (which is the only thing I find hard to believe). So the figures are no better than when the SP was £3.30 . Slightly overbought I would say as all the director sells in previous months would suggest
AVST website:
We want to reassure our users that at no time have we sold any personally identifiable information to a third party. We want to give confidence to all our users and partners that they have made the right decision to choose Avast and reassure them that their privacy is secure and their personal data safe.
We have always been committed to providing our users with full control of their privacy at every turn. Our Privacy Policy provides additional clarification on what data we collect, why we require it, and how we handle it, and we have made sure to use clear and easy to understand language rather than standard legal vocabulary. Since we were the first to offer free antivirus protection to users worldwide, we made the decision to voluntarily apply compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) privacy requirements across our entire global user base – without exception. Our Consent Policy explains the steps a user can take to give or withdraw their consent at any time for our products and for trend analytics created by Jumpshot.
Another 12% down today. Once it stabilises, I'll buy back in.
They entered into negotiations t o sell Jumpshot to ASCL t the beginning of last year. They received £30 million in August. ASCL have the option to purchase the rest of Jumpshot for up to £300 million. It s a great business deal. An apt comment on AVST on Engadget: We looked at their product a year ago and it was all aggregated and anonymised. No user-level data, no way any one person could be identified.
Just "here's how many people we estimate are on your website each month".
Yawn. One more fearmongering article trying to get clicks over nothing.
So Avast agrees that its ownership of Jumpsuit is incompatible with the aims of a cyber security. How long did it take them to work that one out?
Good find Joeko. ASCL who basically run Jumpshot now see their shares drop a bit. So the thing is I've had free internet security from AVst for years. They get to sell my browsing data. I get ads related to my data. Things I might be interested in. Big deal. Its a great deal compared to paying MAcfee or Norton to slow your computer down, or in some extremes stop it working altogether. Its been public knowledge forever digital data collection. Bt used to, and probably still do sell your phone number to annoying double glazing salesman which is far more annoying. Now people are making out its some devious secret that's suddenly been exposed.
Pretty poor response in honesty
Found this also.
https://www.activistpost.com/2020/01/antivirus-software-harvests-every-search-every-click-every-buy-on-every-site.html
Cambridge Analytica was a completely different beast in that it 'stole' data from facebook users, and in turn used that data to build profiles on individuals that they could then target and influence during election campaigns/referendums. This was known as weapons grade communications and required prior government approval.
Avast are simply selling anonymised data sourced via browsing habits. It also informed users their information could be collected, and gave them a chance to opt out.
The share price fall is most definitely a reaction based on the reputational damage of a few tech site articles, combined with broker downgrades and coronavirus threat.
IT has been massively overbought which is entirely a different matter. Directors have consistently been offloading for a few months. Jeffries price target yesterday of £4.05 seems a bit of an over reaction but overbought gets oversold. I really think this digital data is a red herring. Its big business and as I say that is what Jumpshot does and why specialist digital company ASCL bought in around August last year with it with the option to buy the rest of Jumpshot for not more than £300 million. If it gets to £4.00 its a steal