Member Info for Pianista

There's no reason to suppose that Raza knew about Sainsbury's before he purchased. He's only a NED, attending monthly meetings. He'd be mad to inside deal.

For 10,000 shares, it's 15.66p to sell, 17.7p to buy. Mid-price 16.68p.

Can buy 5,000 at 17.7p atm, but not 50,000.

The PI manipulation was when there were maybe 100 tiny trades in one day. This is different. I feel that something is afoot. Who knows, though?

Yes, that's also very interesting, from a company that's usually on the ball. They must be ready, but they are holding them back...

Can't buy 50,000 at 18p atm.

Ties in with the fact that Microlise have recently beefed up their board in the last month or so - with two additional appointments.

Big jump in SP today. Market got wind of a bullish update?

The "Careers at Trakm8" page does state "The company is expanding rapidly...", so it looks like the former. Bodes well for the impending update.

"With its shares trading at just 14.25p, the group, with three profitable and cash generative subsidiaries, is capitalised at only £12m, yet it will end the year with some £7.5m cash and making £1.1m [should be £1.27m, btw] pre-tax profits on some £11.7m of group sales.
That is totally the wrong price and eventually the market will realise the value of its shares.
Still time to get aboard while others are dithering.
I consider that there is easily 25% in the shares in the very short-term."

I agree (or maybe that should be, he agrees with me!).

KBYK – there are too many unknowns at the moment to say definitively what the valuation should be….some of those unknowns will hopefully be removed by the next update, which could be imminent.

There is no doubt that this has the POTENTIAL to multi-bag. However, in the meantime, I’m not setting my sights too high. After all, they've made no promises about this year, except to say they expect it to be profitable.

If they can firm up on that in the update, and guide us towards a meaningful profit of say £0.5m, I can certainly see a rerating to 30p+ in the short term, as the market starts to believe in the company again.

I’m poised to buy another 50,000 if it looks promising.

Emerald - there are probably hundreds of thousands of cases around the world every day, yet 2 cases on a cruise ship make the headlines. It's only news because the sensationalist media is obsessed with what they mischievously call "floating petri dishes". Add to that, the fact that we are governed these days by nervous - and neurotic - public health officials, and the risk of cruises again being put on hold is real. That would not be justified, but the cruise industry has had so many false starts, yet another one wouldn't come as any surprise really, especially at a time when "Freedom Day" is about to be put back a month.

This is despite, as EmeraldCarrots said, "...if all people on a cruise ship are fully vaccinated and tested before boarding it is obvious being on the ship will be one of the safest places on Earth".

More than its effect on passengers, this outbreak may prompt a rethink by the authorities. That's the main problem for cruise companies.

"I still have problems understanding why QTX is valued so much higher. Yes, it should be higher but at over 30 times?"

I think it’s the fact that, unlike QTX's, Trak’s revenue hasn’t reached "critical mass"; this magnifies the effect of its already high operational gearing. In figures (back of envelope):

Trak's been bumping along at £20m pa revenue - though, exceptionally, only £16m last year - and let’s say a nominal adjusted profit of £100k pa.

A 25% increase in turnover from £20m to £25m would yield a profit of roughly £2.5m (i.e. assuming 50% gross profit on £5m additional turnover, and no extra costs), hence a 25 times increase in profits.

This factor of 25 corresponds to, and rationalises, the factor of 30 that you mention.

(Compare this to what would happen if there were a further increase in revenue of £5m from £25m to £30m, ie a 20% increase this time. This would again give an extra £2.5m of profit, but this would only be a 100% increase, i.e. a factor of 2: the operational gearing is now high, but not abnormally high).

As an alternative to increasing revenues, you could of course achieve a similar financial boost by cutting out costs, eg through a merger (with Microlise?). I think this is becoming more and more likely as time goes on - unless Trak's business finally takes off this year...

Impressive presentation by Joe Grimmond last night.

EPS for 20/21 was shown as 0.83p (I'd guesstimated conservatively 0.75p) and for 21/22 it's forecast to be 1.27p. Applying a PER of 20 gives SP of 25p.

In addition, after the sale of Haydock, the cash balance will be over £7m, or 8p per share, and no debt.

There is no logical reason why this won't soon re-rate to 20p+ . Even 30p could then be on the horizon...

Our current chairman was until a couple of years ago a NED of Clipper...

Final results for 31/3/21 are likely to be RNS'd this month, so we're in a close period, and no director buying, if any, till next month.

No, I'm not in the industry. Just a shareholder with frayed nerves!

Components for Trak is my main concern.

In your worst case scenario, we'd be back to square one, with no one vaccinated, and no cruises again for months on end...

...to go on for another year, per the FT.

"Forecast from Singapore-based Flex comes as scarcity forces carmakers to scale back production."

Let's hope Trak aren't too badly affected.