Our latest Investing Matters Podcast episode with QuotedData's Edward Marten has just been released. Listen here.
Looks like another series of purchases this afternoon, presumably Richard Griffith has raised his stake yet again and we'll get an RNS confirming this on Monday.......
As I said before, sub 50p attracts buyers and the stock seems to be able to drift down in very little volume to these levels. As commented this morning, there's a spate of automatic trades in this share, as the marketmakers attempt to manipulate the share, and in my opinion, the share price moves too much in such light trade. For example, approximately 35,000 shares were sold at the beginning of the day, making the price then fall by 2%. How was a 2% fall possible from so little shares changing hands?
It's this sort of thing that drives us all mad on here. Meanwhile 1.6m shares were bought earlier in one go, and the price only moves up less than one pence. It's all clearly being well controlled by the marketmakers.....
Clearly some marketmakers find this stock interesting enough to try to influence the pricing. If such trading was banned across the board, I wonder what affect it would have on the wider market if shares could only move in reaction to real, human trading? Is for example the fall in these shares a by-product of such manipulation and therefore an exaggeration of the human only trades? Equally, was the price last year too high due to automatic trading in the opposite direction?
Cheers Desertsands. To be fair, I am topping up at these lowly levels, but it is so frustrating seeing such a potentially good company trade at these levels, and given the very low daily trading levels, you can easily be mistaken for thinking you are the only one interested or believing in the company.
Fortunately I have only bought in since summer so completely missed the massive Wandisco collapse much earlier in the year. Nevertheless, I have bought in and continue to buy in because of what I perceive to be the star attractions of the company, and I'll continue averaging down each month whilst the price remains below my average buy in price.
One day it will turn, and I suspect the improvement will be dramatic - let's hope so..........
Desertsands, fair comments and critique. The Biztech analysis was actually made a few weeks ago after the recent trading update [in mid October] so my frustration really was more to do not with a drift in the price four days after I had posted that link last week, but that it was more like a month since that posting and the price has really drifted down quite badly since then.
Your comments are salient - obviously buyers will only pay what the share is worth to them, and lets face it, this time last year they were willing to pay many multiples more, per share!
I am patient, but you have to admit, as the share hits new lows, in extremely low turnover, it becomes simply more frustrating to watch on the sidelines as time goes on. It is a great shame we are not getting some Director buys coming in at these low levels. Also, we now have to accept we will get fewer RNS's as not every deal will get publicised, so this too is frustrating to note.
I do unreservedly agree with you that by 2025 the price should have substantially improved, but when the current price is banging around the sub 50p level, and there are no announcements, I don't think any shareholders can be blamed for being frustrated, and waiting until 2025 is a long time.......
What's wrong with this market - don't the marketmakers learn anything?
The price has been allowed to drift down again in very low trade, meaning we are likely to get another RNS soon as someone - probably Richard Griffiths - loads up again. Yet the amount that investor buys will far exceed the amount being currently sold meaning a further imbalance towards the free float left to buy.
This is resulting in the free float's value dropping when it should be rising; which is illogical.
As BizTech Academy points out below, this is a bargain basement job, and at the current price level, even more so.
It unfortunately sums up why so few companies now list here, the preference being the US for a more sensible pricing - I wonder why?
Https://x.com/BizTechAcademy1/status/1714931193861542389?t=0q_bL9lbRbZVJkb-QpP1bw&s=35
Problem is that this update reinforces yet again that there is absolutely no succession plan in place here, and SMS is not getting any younger. There's just no sign of a changing future for long suffering shareholders.
And just look at that share graph - over £2 earlier in the year, and 55p now - management need to hold their head in shame over this.
I count at least six late trades, totalling over 5.7m shares; but the problem with late trades is that they can be advised to the market up to 48 hours after they took place. It does make it hard to keep track of things.
On the other hand, it would appear that we have a nice RNS coming in shortly........
If it is not an RNS confirming someone has loaded up, it will then be presumably an RNS confirming some new major deal has been struck in which case it is incredible how these things leak out......
I have a large number of emails that I have to deal with each day, and many include attachments. On my home computer, bought only in 2021, it is already having memory issues. Looking through the storage data, what is clear is that it is not unusual now for an email to be 1MB and if it has an attachment in colour that can be significantly bigger.
I'm just one person with my own computing issues, but now imagine how it must be for companies. The vast majority of companies out there must be facing something similar to me every year or two; just imagine how much storage space is required to keep a company's data files up to date and to store all emails sent / received by that company.
I cannot see, given this ongoing problem that is not going away, how a company like CRTA can do anything other than prosper and seal one deal after another.
Who knows how big GM or Ford's data requirements are, but they are clearly needing more space - hence the deals earlier in the year. All companies will become in this position, so there must be deal after deal being done out there at the moment. As I said before, what level of deal constitutes a deal so big that it must be advised as an RNS?
I wish I had the space to answer this.........
I really think this is now trading around the bottom of its indicated range. Some good comments this morning on here - Desertsands - etc, but I think that given the risk profile of the stock, rises and falls will always be more extreme here. At the moment, we all have the chance to buy in sub 50p - that is surely a bargain basement level longer term. There's been no adverse news released after all to push the price lower and it has really fallen off a cliff last week. As I say, it falls / rises too much at the moment, and currently it has fallen too far. I do expect it to retrace to mid 50's at least in the very short term, without an RNS.
How low does this share price have to drop before someone makes an offer? Surely we must be approaching that ‘danger’ level now?
Since none of the main shareholders have sold out, current weakness must be due to small investors selling. I will now be buying more this week.
Fair point Walkley - I presume a range of smaller deals are going on, but there's no need now to announce them, so there's no RNS. That is not to say then that no deals are being bound! I wonder how big a deal now has to be to merit an RNS being issued?
Much as I think this is a great company with groundbreaking technology, it is absolutely dispiriting to see the shares now trading sub 50p. no-one can be selling at a profit at this level.
Are losses elsewhere so bad that shares in CRTA have to be sold to pay them off?
TT1981 - absolutely agree. JAdams, you are presumably a very disgruntled ex-member of staff, or former shareholder if you keep on repeating this rubbish.
The money in reserves will see the company through to 2025 actually - bear in mind the cost base has been significantly cut - many staff were cut - hence some of the commentators on here......
Also, the whole sector is out of favour in the stock market, so these shares have been hit along with their peers. Just a question of averaging down at this level and waiting it out. Given the low free float, the shares are able to suddenly rally, and there's no point in missing out. Let's face it - none of us know when the next deal will be announced, but any company that can sign up Ford or GM can easily sign up other major customers; and I'd say the next announcement cannot be far off.
I really cannot see how with the free float continually shrinking that the share price does not start to respond one day by rising sharply. It is as if the market is in denial that the shares are being slowly sucked up.
You do notice on the other hand that the spread seems to now be often eye wateringly wide - I suspect there is dissent amongst marketmakers on this, as they clearly worry about pricing the shares down if some sellers emerge against the risk of someone swooping and buying in. It does not currently take much stock sold to make the sell price drift lower, the converse should obviously be true on the other side of things.....
It is also noticeable how often now the spread comes sharply down in the afternoon as US interest comes in. I suppose that is a portent of the future - eventually this will go to a US bidder?