Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
might have something to do with this.
(read it quickly, before the advert takes over)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/11/30/accenture-create-3000-cybersecurity-jobs/
"CrowdStrike shares have fallen almost 20% over the past month, trailing the 3.5% rise in the S&P 500 index. The stock began experiencing selling pressure on Monday, losing more than 10% after Morgan Stanley analyst Hamza Fodderwala initiated coverage of the stock with an Underweight rating which is the equivalent of sell. While Fodderwala acknowledged the company’s growth from the shift toward digitalization and remote work over the past two years, while gaining a leadership position in endpoint detection and response (EDR) security, the analyst fears that competition will chip away at CrowdStrike’s early success. Fodderwala expects rivals to undercut CrowdStrike's prices by at least 15% to 20%, noting that this competitive headwind, along with a reduction in work from home, will impede CrowdStrike's current pace of share gains. In other words, CrowdStrike has a lot to prove Wednesday and its guidance for the next two quarters will determine how the stock responds."
The share price of Darktrace is bound to be influenced by what happens to Crowdstrike. However, I notice that Crowdstrike deals with endpoint security, which I believe is strengthening the castle walls to keep intruders out. Darktrace is very different. It says that hackers will always eventually get in, so it tells you when they have broken in. The company has a world lead in this type of security, because its programmers from Autonomy and GCHQ started designing its programs years ago. This is why it may merge in the future with another big technology firm.
The best security is to buy both types of software. However, this can be expensive.
It might be linked to the fall in Crowdstrike share price, (I think our main competitor), which is down 4.46% today and 21% in the last month.
Another thing I learned at the AGM - the institutions want to buy substantial sums of Darktrace shares, and are having discussions with Darktrace about it. I understand that they are biding their time until the present turmoil is over and they think the share price represents good value. I got this from my friend - because he had spent a lot of time talking to Darktrace staff (not the directors) at the AGM.
"Damages claimed against Dark could be substantial " No. Darktrace did not exist when Mike Lynch was at Autonomy.
I went to the AGM.
I learned more talking to other shareholders after the AGM than during it. The AGM lasted only about 20 minutes and there were perhaps 40 people altogether in the room.
I talked to one very clever shareholder. He has been investing for years and has made a great deal of money. He said forget all about Mike Lynch and Peel Hunt. These matters will fall out in time. Just concentrate instead on the really rapid growth in sales each year. He said the rate will fall off eventually because of future competition, but even so, it's so rapid and relentless that he has estimated the future profits. From this he calculates that the share price will be £20 in five years' time.
Poppy was asked where Darktrace will be in five years' time. She said the future is exciting. The technology the company has is unique. It can be used not only for cybersecurity, but in the future also in a host of ways in completely different industries. The number of customers who could buy the product now is huge - Darktrace has only scratched the surface.
Microsoft buy Darktrace's Antigena. Everywhere Microsoft runs, Darktrace provides security. Microsoft and Darktrace programmers work very closely together on this.
My shareholder friend also told me that there are people in the City who really really hate Mike Lynch. Some he thinks have been connected with Peel Hunt in the past. They will do anything to damage Mike Lynch, and if that means damaging Darktrace too, so be it.
Darktrace were down 3.5% today, but so were Crowdstrike (down 7%) and Sentinel0ne (down 9%.) I haven't been able to find why the American ones dropped so much.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies ONT.L : Berenberg initiates with buy rating; PT of 662p
Oxford Nanopore Technologies ONT.L : Citigroup initiates with neutral rating; PT 660p
Oxford Nanopore Technologies ONT.L : JP Morgan initiates with overweight rating and 725p PT
Oxford Nanopore Technologies ONT.L : RBC initiates with outperform rating and 800p PT
The end of lock-up periods can push prices down by flooding the market with new shares if early investors choose to realise their gains. In Darktrace’s case, it will more than double the number of shares available to be traded.
The company has previously warned that the end of the 180-day “lock up” period could send shares falling.
Darktrace’s prospectus said: “The market price of the shares could be negatively affected by sales of substantial amounts of such shares in the public markets, including following the expiry of the lock-up period, or the perception that these sales could occur.”
This Investors Chronicle article will have a lot to do with it.
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/news/2021/11/18/end-of-lock-up-period-sparks-sales-at-darktrace/
"Darktrace sold off (yesterday) after insider share sale.
Investors lost confidence in the stock again after Mike Lynch's long time public relations adviser sold millions of shares in the company, pocketing more than £9 million from the sale."
Sorry for posting it twice. It didn't work first time ( I thought)
Darktrace investor sells shares
Vanessa Colomar sold her shares at the earliest opportunity
Mike Lynch’s long-time public relations adviser has pocketed more than £9 million after dumping shares in Darktrace, the cybersecurity group.
Vanessa Colomar, who has been by the entrepreneur’s side at his recent fraud trial and extradition hearings, sold a £5.43 million stake on Monday, stock exchange filings show. She followed that with a £3.62 million sale on Tuesday.
In total, she offloaded 1.43 million shares for close to £9.1 million. She still owns 5.72 million shares worth £34 million.
Colomar, 48, sold the shares as soon as she could, having been locked in for the first six months since Darktrace was floated at 250p in London at the beginning of May. She was Lynch’s communications chief at Autonomy, the software company that he co-founded and sold to Hewlett Packard for $11 billion in 2011. She then joined Invoke Capital, his technology investment vehicle.
Darktrace shares have tumbled partly because of fears that insiders would start dumping stock as their lock-ins expired, while a note from Peel Hunt knocked a fifth off the shares at the end of October.
Darktrace investor sells shares
Vanessa Colomar sold her shares at the earliest opportunity
Mike Lynch’s long-time public relations adviser has pocketed more than £9 million after dumping shares in Darktrace, the cybersecurity group.
Vanessa Colomar, who has been by the entrepreneur’s side at his recent fraud trial and extradition hearings, sold a £5.43 million stake on Monday, stock exchange filings show. She followed that with a £3.62 million sale on Tuesday.
In total, she offloaded 1.43 million shares for close to £9.1 million. She still owns 5.72 million shares worth £34 million.
Colomar, 48, sold the shares as soon as she could, having been locked in for the first six months since Darktrace was floated at 250p in London at the beginning of May. She was Lynch’s communications chief at Autonomy, the software company that he co-founded and sold to Hewlett Packard for $11 billion in 2011. She then joined Invoke Capital, his technology investment vehicle.
Darktrace shares have tumbled partly because of fears that insiders would start dumping stock as their lock-ins expired, while a note from Peel Hunt knocked a fifth off the shares at the end of October.
....is impressive.
https://www.darktrace.com/en/advisory-council/
Berenberg said a visit to Darktrace's headquarters in Cambridge last week confirmed its confidence in the group. The bank said it was shown "extensive product demonstrations and came away with a better understanding of the product and its real-world applicability".
"Management indicated that, while the focus is still on winning new customers, there has also been more focus on upsell campaigns also. These are being created by the company’s strategic marketing teams and are feeding account executives with more granular information on customer needs to drive upsell," it said.
"This, coupled with churn reducing because of an enlarged customer success team, should enable the net retention rate (NRR) rates to continue to trend upward."
Berenberg's added that its forecast for NRR were now beginning to seem increasingly conservative, particularly as management confirmed its two new product categories - prevent and pheal - will be launched by the end of 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Berenberg's site visit shed light on the product strength," the
analysts say
The bank forecasts net client retention rate to continue
to increase as Darktrace management confirmed two new product
categories
The analysts see Darktrace's new product Prevent -- which
finds vulnerabilities in companies’ systems similar to a
penetration testing -- to benefit from growing regulation
mandating the regular use of penetration testing
Peel Hunt reiterated its negative stance on Tuesday, though other analysts are more positive. In a note published Wednesday, Jefferies’ Charles Brennan said that “based on industry data, we think there is clear evidence that Darktrace is the fastest-growing company in this sector.”
The paper says that the share crash is because traders are bracing themselves for a potential wave of sales from major investors.
In other words there's nothing wrong with the company - it's as sound as ever. So I'm not bothered about this dip in the price, because it will be only temporary. Once the sellers have gone, the share price will recover again.
From memory, 70% of Darktrace shares are held by about only nine investors. They will all know each other, and regularly talk to each other. I expect they have planned all along to offer the company for sale to big American technology companies in perhaps four or five years, when the company will be very profitable. This is what Mike Lynch did with Autonomy - he offered it to Oracle, HP and others. These nine shareholders will get substantially more money selling their shares this way than selling them on the UK market - and especially not today. So I've also put my shares in a cupboard and am leaving them there to benefit in the same way in a few more years. Until then I just ignore the ups and downs of the share .price.