Member Info for bobocaca

There are only 2 type of people on this board, all have their vested interest. Those who own the shares will want to SP to go up, while shorters want it to go down. People with neutral stand, or who have given up and sold up, will not bother involving in heated debates. To me, it is that simple, anyone who is tying so hard to say DT is a fraud, is hired by shortsellers.

I kind of miss the good old days where Charles was the only one spamming the board.

As a long-time shareholder, today's SP is totally expected. Darktrace has had better news before and the biggest deal fell into Q2 2023 which is the 'bad' quarter in last trading update. So, one good deal does not compensate for overall weakness in that quarter.

Most importantly, the SP rose from 25% from 200p to 250p , it is time for some to take profit, or exit at IPO price. My thought is, the SP should break out if it finishes above 250p today and tomorrow.

A note about March result.

This will be half year result which include the last trading update, therefore the growth and revenue won't be 'good'. However, the profit can still increase due to improvement in currency exchange rate or cost efficiency. The most looking forward part, at least for me, is the guidance for the rest of the year. Has the business/economy improves since the start of the year?

They admit that in page 57:
"
- DT has real product with legitimate sales (unlike a few frauds we saw)
- A few of the industry players we sampled had a (qualified_ good opinion of DT's products
"

SP dropped 2% momentarily, looks like QCM has not given up, but SP recovered quickly.

People were worried when they did not know what kind of fraud or troubles QCM was accusing DT of. Now we know they are nothing serious. I bet they regret releasing the report, which provide grounds for DT to explain themselves.

I could read the article here
https://www.ft.com/content/9abdd17a-b34b-4613-b299-fbf341e32d62

A lot of them echoes what i said earlier that the channel stuffng allegations were pre-IPO before hiring of current CFO; even if they true, it only happened to small region and immaterial to revenue. Robust accounting practise has been in place since the CFO came into power and did not find any evidence of breaching in core markets (UK, US etc).

New revelation:
Berenberg’s head of European equities since July 2020 and its former head of European research, is married to Darktrace head of investor relations Luk Janssens.

Think the quiet period is after quarter's end, or 2 weeks before the report release. Something like that.

Darktrace had been too soft. They just kept their head down when Shadowfall attacked, when TB walked away. This invites other shortsellers to have a go. QCM never expected DT to fight back this time with £100M. DT should double down like taking legal action, to deter other opportunist shortsellers.

I'm surprised they bought back only half a million shares yesterday, meaning the other 7+ millions were bought by genuine investors.

josey agreed. From QCM's response, I think even if the allegations were true, they might be a thing of the past with insignificant financial value. They didn't accuse anything related to the product/technology, nor foul playing in major markets.

My interpretation of DT and QCM's statements:

There may be some 'innovative' sales tactics pre-IPO. However, the regions and businesss mentioned were tiny and negligible to overall account. DT hired CFO from outside to clean up the mess and made sure everything was done correctly. Therefore, the questionable transactions have never been included in the company finance.

QCM's response sounded desperate and worried.

Darktrace should sue QCM for defamation. The management is too soft, and allow other to bully them with baseless claim. The board should replace Poppy with person with stronger personality.

new shorter Quintessential Capital Management, 0.86%

Don't think a tiny 60k buy from a director could cause 7% rise. Perhaps another RNS later today?

He sold £1.3M in 2 months ago.

Neither she nor ML is employee or in the director board, they do not have any insider information. It is not a bad thing that they sell their shares but at this pace, there will still be many years before they sold out all their shares to cut off tie with Darktrace.

Lending, despite different methods, but we both can agree Darktrace is a solid company. It is still growing, just a little slower due to macro economy that is affecting everyone. The economy gotta be turning around in 2H.

Darktrace's nett P/E from last financial year is in excess of 1000. If you rely on P/E, you wouldn't be buying Darktrace.

Most often than not, tech acquirer is more interested in the tech rather than profit. If you don't live under rock, you must have heard about AI tool called chatGPT. It is loss making but is worth $29B and Microsoft is increasing its stakes in it as this provides an opportunity to topple Google's search engine. This is how I look at things. There will be companies looking to buy Darktrace to complement their products rather than eyeing for the good P/E. Established companies have channels to monetize new tech easily.

Lending, indeed adjusted EDITDA remove shares related cost, and share buyback reduce the profit. It is not ideal but at least the company is trying to do something to support the share price. However, I think perhaps that is the single reason why it is no under £2 already(answer to Ade). The company WILL ALWAYS give shares to employees. Without the buy back, they will simply print new share certificates to dilute the share value.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not shorting Darktrace but I'm simply seeing the company as startup rather than Buffet's view as a blue chip company. Just 4 months ago, TB approached Darktrace when it was 375p (before leakage). One day, the company will be bought. As we can all smell the fear in the room, so do board and the big shareholders. I'm sure they will soften their stance when approached again.I don't know where my optimism comes from but I think the share price will pick up again in April after the next trading update.

On the other hand, RoyalMail's hack should be a wake up call to UK companies who think cyber defence is only a nice-to-have service.

I re-read the trading update, it is actually not that bad. The full year forecast remaining growing with positive adjusted EBIDTA. The one mistake people make, especially Lending, is to apply Buffet's theory to investing UK tech stock which he never did and will never do.