The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
It's hoovered between 1.25 and 1.4 for a few years now. My understanding is a strong pound is bad for results as monies from US convert back into less pounds. Even given that back in 2016. If the pound does surge to 1.7 dollars to the pound then that will be bad news in terms of margins/profits heres. If they actually do make any money. 2021 could well be a loss if things don't improve. Especially after taxes.
Quoted from last broker report at end of March.
'Canaccord said on Friday that ahead of IQE's 2020 full-year results it was bracing itself for some growth moderation on the back of difficult 2020 comparatives, up 28% year-on-year, and pointed to a 7-8% currency headwind.'
'The Canadian bank highlighted that despite record sales in 2020, IQE delivered only a modest 3% adjusted operating margin, which it pinned on the firm's relatively low gross margin of around 19%, compared to peer margins ranging between 25% and 50%, making the muted leverage "a bit of a conundrum".'
What IQE needs is the Pound to weaken. So far sitting firm around 1.38 Dollars to the Pound. Which is not good for IQE. That is 3 months of this so far. Hits bottom line.
The question is does the shortage of parts affect mobile parts? Are IQE parts used in cars too?
I don't think todays fall is linked to broker report. The SP had risen 3-4p in last few trading days.
I wonder if Hargreaves Lansdown bought out some of TRP shares. FT shows them with 2 lots of shares worth 10% or so of stock. IQE are sometimes slow to report this.
Might be a month or so for any news here. TU in May? Wait till they have some Q1 news. Unless they have news on orders? Seems to me where the demand is they lack capacity.
I think the big issue here will be margins and the value of Pound.
DEUTSCHE BANK CUTS IQE PRICE TARGET TO 80 (100) PENCE - 'BUY'
Maybe just delayed? Still 16p above current market price.
Taiwan seems to be suffering from a draught. Some talk of semiconductor firms being allowed to use water still. If it gets worse could production be halted? Seems unlikely.
On a plus side T Rowe Price appear to have stopped their day trading of this share now. No RNS from them in a while. No change in shorts either.
I still wonder what H1 will bring here. Maybe they will shock the market. Just not sure it will happen given all that is going on.
Possible TU in May. Good buys on Friday possibly why price rose slightly today. Tried googling their US operations with pretty much zero results. Same for Aus Twitter feed. Not sure what is going on there.
Overall seems a lot of positive share price movement here. Just hope the business can back it up with H1 performance. No reason to suggest it won't. Target 120-150p. Or is that just silly?
www.slashgear.com/apple-ipad-and-macbook-reportedly-first-to-feel-the-chip-shortage-pinch-08667578/amp/
Having to use spare parts from computers to build iphone 12. These are the issues facing industry. Real possibility iphone 12 could run out of some parts.
£14.99k buy trade at 16.07pm and that explains why were closer to 100p. Time of year where directors could top up isa? Seems unlikely so close to results. Wonder if the presentation influenced any funds/investors here? Be nice to touch 100p this week but no reason to suggest this could happen without news. Does feel like there is strong demand here and very limited stock.
Still not making money even if they have increaed yields from the machines by 50%. Still very coy over which sites are under production capacity. Guessing America as this is where the production was switchd from when supply chains moved. Could also be UK. What does the UK plant specialise in?If they can pick up orders to utilise all plants then we wil see if tehy can really make money like they did 5+ years ago. Their talk of future orders aways seems to be that. That or they have lost orders elsewhere? This may turn good but need some signs 2021 has turned the corner.
Least they are answering the questions. How many tools are not in use? Hmmm.
It is a pr video really. Fact he even has to say this is not great. Everywhere has has supply shortages. IQE has equipment not even being used!
Seems to me someone is pretty eager to buy up any stocks here. Small trades forcing price up here. Some good news or director buys could add 10-20% here. Company keeps expanding. If profits move higher with this it's all good news.
Bad news if you like AMD CPU. Think they also help with Playstation and Xbox? All of which use AMD CPU too? They may also do graphics? IQE hardly short of production room. Welsh facility had room for 90 more tools?
Strong bounce yesterday. Drifting slightly today. No change in shorts that we can see. No idea what true value here is. Especially if results are being used to downplay forecasts. Hmmm
Perhaps, but they are still only predicting 2.5m PBT for 2021. Which will ultimately mean a loss after taxes and other costs. These write downs and one off costs never tend to just go away. I think you will see similar issues in 2021 which will stop them making a profit again. Even 2022 Edison is only predicting 6.8m PBT. Overall after 2 years Edison expect revenue to rise by 8m. Maybe these are baseline figures and things will improve but how has revenue increased so much and profits fallen away so badly?
It takes many months for these new equipment to come on line. We saw that in Wales. 4-5 months? 3 new machinery but's is not going to have a huge impact on revenue here? Not sure what revenue they would expect per machine. The 10 in Wales was not wholely responsible for the rise in revenue alone here as they considerably expanded elsewhere where their supply chain goes.
The issue is still there. Their competitors have much better margins and are making money. So something is not quite right here. Can't all be down to Covid and one off costs. As that affects every company. On that basis prices would be rising on a broad range of goods. Not really happened so far.
Covid could be here for next 2-3 years so that would be bad for IQE. If they can't cover costs prices need to rise or cost savings need to be made. Don forget revenue actually fell in H2.
Maybe you are suggesting once Covid ends clients will start increasing orders? From what I can see the issue at present seems to be a lack of capicity for phones and other items. So not sure about that.
See if we hit 50p on Monday. More than possible as 500m valuation seems very high.
Some big late trades that could be short position closing. All at same price. At some point Ennismore will fully clear. End of tax year too. Much cheaper than 70p too.
Main issues here seem to be ability of iqe to match market expectations and make a profit. 2018 they were turning over 156m with 8.66m profit. Dropped to 140m 2019 with 18-19m loss. Go back to 2016 their turnover was 132m with close to 20m profit. Actual profit!! 2020 revenue 46m higher than 2016 yet losing money. Ebidta is only matching 2016. 2016 saw 31.7m ebidta with 34.7m gross profit. 2020 with only 33.15m gross profit and 30m ebidta it gives you an idea of the issues here. 5 years on and gross profit has gone down!!
Story of these numbers is revenue overall has been rising but profits have fallen away. Likely due to poor margins that need to be at 25-30% to match others in industry. Costs rose hugely after they built the Welsh facility? It does not seem to be making economy of scales. Even IQE is not expanding in Wales.
Something has gone wrong as you would expect profits to rise with revenue. If you strip out all one off costs IQE were talking 4-5m profits. It's not like this is a one off as 2021 is forecasting a 3m profit assuming sales don't take off. Not good enough.
This is not the same company from 5 years ago that was making money and looking at strong sales growth.
Costs need to be slashed and margins improved. That or increase sales to contribute to the cost of sales.
If operations are running efficiently, which i doubt, it would mean the big players are squeezing IQE on price. Which long term is bad news.
No idea why you think this is worth 70-90p. Loss making firm albeit with low debt. There is no great advantage to take this over unless you could slash out millions in costs.
So Cannacord have not put a 'hold' rating on IQE. With a price now of 65p instead of 80p. So 5-10p lower might be norm. They site fact IQE margins are low compared to competition. Hence why they struggle to make money here. Squeezed by the big players.
My point is all the new production is not going to the Welsh facility. They have 10 machines active and have new machines on order for Taiwan. They expanded before in Taiwan too.So i assume the Welsh facility is in large parts unused? It had room for 100 machines. So 10% used? You see my point?
If a fund wanted to dump share then maybe. Not so sure. The results were as expected. Just the forecast for year not so great. Pends if Sterling maintains its strength. Covid is causing companies to streamline products. Ford ditching Mondeo. Same for mobile phone makers. That with chip shortages. Tested 60p today but quickly above it. I don't think shorters are active here. One position above 0.5% left. Always high volumes day after results. That and end of tax year.