Member Info for tommy15

I agree with stew (although unlike him I am definitely twitchy): at these prices a negative outlook has already been priced in.

The continued selling right up to the line of the results is scary and hints and something worse than mere "negative outlook".

Oh well - there's nothing to do now but wait for tomorrow. I've had too much FOMO to put any of my money where my fairly cynical mouth is, and am still holding a ton of LOOP. Lessons will be learnt tomorrow one way or another!

So the mere concept of me wanting to see some evidence to back up claims being made was enough to drive you to make a snarky comment?

That tells me everything I need to know about your opinions, thank you.

As I said above, "I have a substantial investment in LOOP". I'll clarify that that's a LONG investment for the cynics.

I am trying to break free from the reckless optimism and echo-chamber effect so apparent in this forum. It's pretty scary that anyone expressing a reasonable negative opinion about a share gets shouted down, rather than counter-arguments based on actual facts or analysis.

I'm putting effort into this because I genuinely want to come to an evidence-based conclusion about this share. If that conclusion is to hold, then fine. If it's to sell and take a loss, then so be it.

Yeah sure he says he's frustrated... meanwhile *someone* is continuing to offload shares.

As I said, everything we are seeing is EXACTLY what would happen if there was bad news coming and insiders were selling. If I was an insider, had more that I wanted to offload, and wanted a bit more time to do it before I gave a negative update, I would also blame the auditors and go on about how frustrated I was, while not giving out any more information.

Let's say the books are fine and it is just a case of handling the intangible amortization - the other points still hold, it still feels like there could be bad news coming, e.g. forward-looking statements not looking so positive.

If they had something good to say, why not say it today?

If the intangibles from their recent takeover are now worth less, is that because they failed to capitalize on business oppurtunities that came with that purchase and that counted as some of the intangibles?

Again I hope I'm wrong, but this is starting to feel like a value trap.

I can't stop thinking: isn't everything we're seeing EXACTLY what would happen if some insider knew there was some bad news coming up and was quietly getting rid of their shares (legally or otherwise)?

- no updates from management for months
- sneaky feel about results delay (the date disappearing from the website for a few days, then today's "update")
- consistent selling pressure for months, despite the apparently "obvious" value here
- the delay in auditing - sure it could be inoccuous, sure it could be because the auditors are deciding exactly how to frame some fantastic news that will send the price rocketing, but let's be honest, the most likely reason for this delay - and no published announcement of a revised date - is that there is something off about the books that the auditors are looking into.

Feels like people on this board are twisting themselves in circles to see this as positive development, while to an impartial observer* it seems overwhelmingly likely that it's bad news

*I'm not really an impartial observer - I have a substantial investment in LOOP - but got in recently so losses so far are small. But I'm concerned about those losses becoming far more meaningful if things continue in this way.

jointhedots, thanks very much for your response. You're totally right that my "analysis" was overly simplistic assuming no shares being retraded (and also just wrong by a factor of 2...). But you seem to also be of the same opinion as me that the conspiracy theories are baseless, and that shares are shifting happily at the current SP because, for whatever reason, people are happy to sell them at this price. We just have to hope that they are driven by some goal other than buying underpriced shares and holding them until they go up.

CHRI55, I think both of the things you said are truisms.

CHRI55, could you please explain exactly how, why and by whom the price is "getting held down"? Because this is the bit I don't understand!

In the last 3 months 19.8 million shares have traded, all in the 70-82p price band.

That represents 36% of all shares, or 57% (!) of the free float.

How many more shares can the "larger investors putting pressure on the board by suppressing the sp" possibly hold? Seems like a rookie mistake to attmept to bully the board by using your massive holding to artificially keep share prices low, only to find that in order to execute your strategy you have to sell the vast majority of your holding. You then miss out on the inevitable rebound in price once you run out of shares and/or some external catalyst drives the price past where you've been pegging it.

I keep seeing all these "conspiracy theories" about why shadowy players may be holding the price back, but still haven't seen any logical, rational explanation for why this strategy would be beneficial to such players.

Seems like Occam's Razor to me. Either there's some mysterious cabal acting against their own interest, or.... some insider knows something and is happy to sell at the current price.

Please convince me otherwise!

I don’t know, there’s a spooky feel about this share.

This board is full of people (me included) who are convinced of the value prop here. It jumps out of the financial statements and smacks you in the face! Yet day after day there are people willing to sell at the current price.

I have a significant position here and I’ve decided to hold out and see what happens next week. But I can’t shake the feeling that someone out there knows something important (and negative) about LOOP, and I may end up having to chalk this one up as a learning experience - “too good to be true”, that kind of thing.

Hope I’m wrong! Good luck all.

Part of the issue is that we've all seen shares - particularly in the USA but here too - where a full recovery from the pandemic is already priced in. Many shares are at all-time highs, as if the pandemic never happened - and this isn't just stocks that obviously benefitted from lockdown.

Look at BOOT (Boot Barn Holdings Inc), a company that sells cowboy boots in mostly brick-and-mortar stores - currently up 42% from its pre-pandemic high, which was itself an ATH, and now trading at a PE of 47 (I use BOOT as an example because I got in as a recovery play at the start of the pandemic, then sold out when it recovered to the pre-pandemic price - only to be left scratching my head at the inexplicable 42% additional gains I missed out on).

Anyway, my point is that we are aware that this is happening and kind of want it to happen for NEX - so a SP > 400 - but for whatever reason it hasn't happened. The current price actually does reflect some of the continuing uncertainty of our current situation - variants, additional waves, vaccine supply issues etc etc, and as such is, I believe, a more fair and reasonable price, even though of course I would prefer the price to have the same reckless optimism as BOOT!

Can we please stop attacking those who have negative opinions about these shares? Otherwise these forums will just turn into a useless echo chamber where nothing is challenged.

I think Gallmat makes a good point. As he says, the pre-pandemic price adjusted for the new shares is ~400 (this is actually quite generous, using the absolute peak price of ~480p in Dec 2019).

So the current price (after today's drop) is down ~27% from the decade-high of 480. Is that fair?

- the UK - with it's advanced vaccine program - is still months away from fully opening up
- ...and we've just learnt that our vaccination program will be set back by about a month by supply issues
- other countries will be further behind
- no dividend; given the above it may be a while until there is a dividend

I am still long NEX. I think it's a great company with great fundamentals, well run, and I believe the story that they have been able to pick up contracts due to the pandemic and will - eventually - come out of it stronger than before.

But it has a long way to go and, given the unknowns and the difficult road ahead, I don't think the price right now makes it a "slam dunk" investment, and I think calling someone who expresses opinions similar to this an "idiot" or a "troll" is not just rude, but foolish.

FWIW I use Interactive Investors and generally haven't had any problem buying at any point in the last month or so.

I see a lot of chatter on this forum about MMs "manipulating" the price of LOOP and I'd love to understand more about how exactly that might work.

Is the idea that the MMs are holding a huge amount of this stock and selling it off below "fair value"?

To what end would they be doing this?

If they ever have to "top up" their stockpile, presumably that means buying it from sellers willing to sell at the current price - and if there are enough of those sellers to allow the MMs to keep this up for so long, doesn't that imply that this is indeed the "fair" price?

Also, I find it a bit suspicious that this supposed manipulation is happening at the same time as management is being curiously coy about giving any updates, which is also clearly puzzling many people on this board. Could it just be that market insiders know more than we do, and there's a good reason why this isn't trading any higher?

Not trying to disparage any theories, just genuinely trying to understand the thoughts here!

Thanks