Month: August 2016

On Pricing Grids, Part 1a

On Pricing Grids, Part 1a

Photo Credit: Doug Waldron
Photo Credit: Doug Waldron

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Before I write this evening, I would like to point out?what is going on with Horsehead Holdings [ZINCQ]. ?There was an article in the New York Times on it recently. ?It’s an interesting situation where an equity committee exists in a bankruptcy, largely because the management team looks like it is not trying to maximize the value of the bankruptcy estate, but is perhaps instead trying to sell the company off to creditors cheaply in an effort to receive a benefit later from the new owners. ?Worth a look, because if the equity committee wins, it will be unusual, and if the debtors win, it very well may take value that legitimately belonged to the equity.

That said, I don’t have a strong opinion because I don’t have enough data. ?But I will be watching.

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I received a letter from a reader yesterday on a related topic from my most recent article. ?Here it is:

Hi David,

First of all, it’s nice to find you (and Ed Yardeni and Mohamed El-Erian) working when most analysts seem to be at the beach. That said, a question:

In early ’09, as you will recall, the big banks were begging for relief from mark-to-market accounting for their holdings of mortgage-backed securities, on the grounds that these securities weren’t trading at all.

“Ridiculous!” said Jeremy Grantham. “Put 2 percent of your holding out to auction and you will learn its market value quick enough.”

At the time, I thought Grantham had a fair point. Now I’m not so sure.

What was your view on that issue? John Hussman has said repeatedly that it was the FASB’s relaxation of the mark-to-market rules that set off the dramatic resurgence in stock prices that we have seen (and which he deplores).

Was the FASB’s change of policy warranted, under the circumstances?

And should the mark-to-market rule now be restored?

Here was my reply:

Hi,

I wrote a lot about this at the time.? I remain in favor of mark-to-market accounting.? The companies that got into trouble from the effects of mark-to-market accounting had engaged in sloppy risk management practices, and got caught with their pants down.

The difficulty that most of the complaining companies had was a mix of liquid liabilities requiring prompt payment, and relatively illiquid assets that would be difficult to sell.? It was the classic asset-liability mismatch — long illiquid assets financed by short liquid liabilities.? Looks like genius during the bull phase.? Toxic during the bear phase.

On Grantham’s comments: my comments Saturday night are pertinent here for two reasons — anyone selling illiquid CDO tranches, subordinated mortgage bonds, etc., immediately prior to the crisis would find two things: 1) the bids were non-existent or really poor, and 2) if the trade did take place, it would be at levels that reset the pricing grid for that area of the market a LOT lower, leaving the remaining securities looking worse, and a diminution of GAAP equity.

(As an aside, the diminution of GAAP equity might affect the ability to do secondary IPOs of stock at attractive prices, but in itself it did not affect solvency of most financial firms, because statutory accounting allowed for investments to held at amortized cost.? As such the firms could be economically insolvent, but not regulatorily insolvent unless they ran out of cash, or their short-term lending lines of credit got pulled.)

Anyway, this piece is a summary of my thoughts, and provides links to other things I wrote during that era:?Fair Value Accounting ? It Is What It Is

The regulators were pretty lenient with most of the companies involved — the creditors weren’t.? They enforced margin agreements, and pulled discretionary credit lines.

I’m not of Hussman’s opinion that relaxation of the mark-to-market rules had ANY effect on stock prices.? In general, GAAP accounting rules don’t affect stock prices, because they don’t affect free cash flow, unless the GAAP rules are embedded in credit covenants.? Statutory accounting does affect free cash flow, and can affect the prices of stocks.

Those are my opinions, for what they are worth.

Sincerely,

David

On Pricing Grids, Part 1

On Pricing Grids, Part 1

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk
Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk?||

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This post may be a little more complex than most. It will also be more theoretical. For those disinclined to wade through the whole thing, skip to the bottom where the conclusions are (assuming that I have any). 😉

Asset Prices are (Mostly) Validated by a Thin Stream of Transactions

One thing that I have been musing about recently is how few transactions exist to validate the pricing of various markets. ?I’ll start with two obvious ones, and then I will broaden out to some more markets that are less obvious. ?(Hint: markets that have a high level of transactions relative to the underlying asset value have a lot of speculative “noise traders.”)

Let me start with the market that I know best as far as this topic goes: bonds. ?Aside from some government and quasi-governmental bonds, very few bonds trade each day — less than a few percent. ?It’s very difficult to use the small volume of trades to price the whole market, but it can be done.

When I was a bond manager for a semi-major insurance company, I was the only one of the top managers that was a mathematician, and?familiar with all of the structures underlying the bonds. ?I could create my own models of bonds if needed, and I often did for interest rate risk analyses (which was still a responsibility amid bond management). ?Combined with my knowledge of insurance accounting, it made me ideal to do a certain monthly task: making sure all of the bonds got priced.

The first part of that isn’t hard. ?The pricing service typically covers 90-98% the bonds ?in the portfolio. ?What I would receive on the first day of the month was a list of all the bonds the pricing service could not calculate a price for. ?I would take that list and compare it to last month’s?list of the same bonds and add to it any new bonds we had bought that month, and who the lead dealer was. ?I would then ask the dealers for their prices on the bonds (which were typically illiquid). ?I would compare those prices to the prices of the prior month, and maybe ask a question or two about the prices that were out of line. ?That would usually elicit a comment from my coverage akin to, “The analyst thinks spreads have widened out for that credit because spreads in that industry have widened out, and a less liquid bond would widen out more. ?The why the price fell more (or rose less).

After that was done, that left me with a small number of utterly illiquid bonds that we had sourced totally privately, or where the dealers who had originated the bonds had ceased to exist. ?All of those deals lacked options to accelerate or decelerate payment, so it was a question of modeling the cash flows and applying an appropriate yield spread over the Treasury or Swap yield curve. ?[Note: the swap curve gives the yield rates at which AA-rated banks are willing to trade fixed rate exposures in their own credit for floating rate exposures in their own credit, and vice-versa.]

But what is appropriate and how did the three methods of getting prices differ? ?The second question is easier. ?They didn’t differ much at all. ?The dealers and I were likely doing the same things — just with different sets of bonds. ?The pricing service, on the other hand, was much more complex, and the other two methods relied on its results.

It was was called “grid” or “matrix” pricing, though it was much more complex than a grid or a matrix. ?The pricing service models would look at all of the most recent trades that had happened in the bond market, and use all of the prices to estimate yields that were adjusted for the options inherent in the bonds that could accelerate or decelerate payments. ?From that, they would piece together yield curves that varied by industry and collateral type, credit rating (agency or implied by a model that involved stock prices and equity option prices), individual creditors, etc. ?Trades on different days were adjusted for market conditions to make the?pricing?as similar as possible to the end of the month. ?After that the yield and yield spread curves generated would be applied to the structures of individual bonds with a adjustments for whether the bonds were:

  • premium or discount
  • large deals that were widely traded or small illiquid deals
  • callable or putable
  • senior or subordinate or structurally subordinate (a bond of a subsidiary not guaranteed by the parent company)
  • secured or unsecured
  • bullet or laddered maturities (sinking funds, etc.)
  • different currencies
  • and more

And there you would have a set of self-consistent prices that would price most of the bond universe. ?That’s not where transactions would necessarily take place… particularly with illiquid securities, what would matter most is who was more incented to make the trade happen — the buyer or the seller.

Implicitly, I learned a lot of this not just from modeling for risk purposes, but from trading a lot of bonds day by day. ?How do you make the right adjustments when you compare two bonds to make a swap, and, how much of a margin do you put in as a provision to make sure you are getting a good deal without the other side of the trade walking away? ?It’s tough, but if you?know how all of the tradeoffs work, you can come to a reasonable answer.

One more note before the summary. ?The less common it is for a bond or group of related bonds to trade, the more effect a trade has on the overall process. ?It becomes a critical datapoint that can redefine where bonds like it trade. ?Illiquidity begets volatile prices changes in the grid/matrix as a result. ?On the bright side, illiquidity is usually associated with small sizes, so it doesn’t affect most of the market. ?There is an exception to this rule: trades done during a panic or the recovery from a panic tend to be sparse as well. ?The trades that happen then can temporarily change a wider area of pricing. ?I remember that vividly from the whipsaw markets 2001-3, especially when the bond market was restarting after 9/11. ?If that crisis had happened later in the month, the quarterly closing prices might not have been as accurate.

Summary for Part 1 (Bonds)

The bond market is complex, far more complex than the stock market. ?Pricing the market as a whole is a complex affair, but one for which prices are reasonably calculable. ?For the average retail investor investing in ETFs, the bonds are liquidi enough that pricing of NAVs is fairly clean. ?But even for a large ugly insurance company bond portfolio, pricing can be significantly accurate. ?Next time, I’ll talk about a related market that has its own pricing grid(s) — mortgages and real estate. ?Till then.

Bumped Against My Upper Cash Limit

Bumped Against My Upper Cash Limit

Photo Credit: Wayne Stadler || Most of us have limited vision, myself included
Photo Credit: Wayne Stadler || Most of us have limited vision, myself included

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In the time I have been managing money for myself and others in my stock strategy, I set a limit on the amount of cash in the strategy. ?I don’t let it go below 0%, and I don’t let it go over 20%.

I have bumped against the lower limit six or so?times in the last sixteen years. ?I bumped against it around five times in 2002, and once in 2008-9. ?All occurred near the bottom of the stock market. ?In 2002, I raised cash by selling off the stocks that had gotten hurt the least, and concentrating in sound stocks that had taken more punishment. ?In September 2002, when things were at their worst, I scraped together what spare cash I had, and invested it. ?I don’t often do that.

In 2008-9 I behaved similarly, though my household cash situation was tighter. ?Along with other stocks I thought were bulletproof, but had gotten killed, I bought a double position of RGA near the bottom, and then held it until last week, when it finally broke $100.

But, I had never run into a situation yet where I bumped into the 20% cash limit until yesterday. ?Enough of my stocks ran up such that I have been selling small bits of a number of companies for risk control purposes. ?The cash started to build up, and I didn’t have anything that I deeply wanted to own, so it kept building. ?As the limit got closer, I had one stock that I liked that would serve as at least a temporary place to invest — Tesoro [TSO]. ?Seems cheap, reasonably financed, and refining spreads are relatively low right now. ?I bought a position in Tesoro yesterday.

I could have done other things. ?I could have moved the position sizes of my portfolio up, but I would have had to increase the position sizes a lot to have some stocks hit the lower edge of the trading band,?but that would have been more bullish than I feel now. ?As it is, refiners have been lagging — I can live with more exposure there to augment Valero, Marathon Petroleum and PBF.

I also could have doubled a position size of an existing holding, but I didn’t have anything that I was that?impressed with. ?It takes a lot to make me double a position size.

As it is, my actions are that of following the rules that discipline my investing, but acting in such a way that reflects my moderate bearishness over the intermediate term. ?In the short run, things can go higher; the current odds even favor that, though at the end the market plays for small possible gains versus a larger possible loss.

The credit cycle is getting long in the tooth; though many criticize the rating agencies, their research (not their ratings) can serve as a relatively neutral guidepost to investors. ?Corporate debt is high and increasing, and profits are flat to shrinking… not the best setup for longs. ?(Read John Lonski at Moody’s.)

I will close this piece by saying that I am looking over my existing holdings and analyzing them for need for financing over the next three years, and selling those that seem weak… though what I will replace them with is a mystery to me.

Bumping up against my upper cash limit is bearish… and that is what I am working through now.

Full disclosure: long VLO MPC PBF and TSO

Book Review: Wiped Out

Book Review: Wiped Out

Wiped Out

Before I start this evening, thanks to Dividend Growth Investor for telling me about this book.

This is an obscure little book published in 1966. ?The title is direct, simple, and descriptive. ?A more flowery title could have been, “Losing Money in the Stock Market as an Art Form.” ?Why? ?Because he made every mistake possible in an era that favored stock investment, and managed to lose a nice-sized lump sum that could have been a real support to his family. ?Instead, he tried to recoup it by anonymously publishing ?this short book which goes from tragedy to tragedy with just enough successes to keep him hooked.

Whom God Would Destroy

There is a saying, “”Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” ?My modification of it is, “Whom God would destroy, he first makes proud.” ?In this book, the author knows little about investing, but wishing to make more money in the midst of a boom, he entrusts a sizable nest egg for a young middle-class family to a broker, and lo and behold, the broker makes money in a rising market with a series of short-term investments, with very few losses.

Rather than be grateful, the author got greedy. ?Spurred by success, he became somewhat compulsive, and began reading everything he could on investing. ?To brokers, he became “the impossible client,” (my words, not those of the book) because now he could never be satisfied. ?Instead of being happy with a long-run impossible goal of 15%/year (double your money every five years), he wanted to double his money every 2-3 years. (26-41%/year)

As such, he moved his money from the broker that later he admitted he should have been satisfied with, and sought out brokers that would try to hit home runs. ?The baseball analogy is useful here, because home run hitters tend to strike out a lot. ?The analogy breaks down?here: a home run hitter can be useful to a team even if he has a .250 average and strikes out three times for every home run. ?Baseball is mostly a game of team compounding, where usually a number of batters have to do well in order to score. ?Investment is a game of individual compounding, where strikeouts matter a great deal, because losses of capital are very difficult to make up. ?Three 25% losses followed by a 100% gain is a 15% loss.

In the process of trying to win big, he ended up losing more and more. ?He concentrated his holdings. ?He bought speculative stocks, and not “blue chips.” ?He borrowed money to buy more stock (used margin). ?He bought “story stocks” that did not possess a margin of safety, which would maybe deliver high gains ?if the story unfolded as illustrated. ?He did not do homework, but listened to “hot tips” and invested off them. ?He let his judgment be clouded by his slight relationships with corporate insiders at the end. ?HE TRIED TO MAKE BIG MONEY QUICKLY, AND CUT EVERY CORNER TO DO SO. ?His expectations were desperately unrealistic, and as a result, he lost it all.

As he lost more and more, he fell into the psychological trap of wanting to get back what he lost, and being willing to lose it all in order to do so. ?I.e., if he lost so much already, it was worth losing what was left if there was a chance to prove he wasn’t a fool from his “investing.” ?As such, he lost it all… but there are three good things to say about the author:

  1. He had the humility to write the book, baring it all, and he writes well.
  2. He didn’t leave himself in debt at the end, but that was good providence for him, because if he had waited one more day, the margin clerk would have sold him out at a decided loss, and he would have owed the brokerage money.
  3. In the end, he knew why he had gone wrong, and he tells his readers that they need to: a) invest in quality companies, b) diversify, and c) limit speculation to no more than 20% of the portfolio.

His advice could have been better, but at least he got the aforementioned ideas?right. ?Margin of safety is the key. ?Doing significant due diligence if you are going to buy individual stocks is required.

Quibbles

This book will not teach you what to do; it teaches what not to do. ?It is best as a type of macabre financial entertainment.

Also, though you can still buy used copies of the book, if enough of you try to buy the used books out there, the price will rise pretty quickly. ?If you can, borrow it from interlibrary loan. ?It is an interesting historical curiosity of a book, and a cautionary tale for those who are tempted to greed. ?As the author closes the book:

“Cupidity is seldom circumspect.”

And thus, much as the greedy need to hear this advice, it is unlikely they will listen. ?Greed is compulsive.

Summary / Who Would Benefit from this Book

A good book, subject to the above limitations. ?It is best for entertainment, because it will teach you what not to do, rather than what to do.

Borrow it through interlibrary loan. ?If you feel you have to buy it, you can buy it here:?WIPED OUT. How I Lost a Fortune in the Stock Market While the Averages Were Making New Highs.

Full disclosure:?I bought it with my own money for three bucks.

If you enter Amazon through my site, and you buy anything, including books, I get a small commission. This is my main source of blog revenue. I prefer this to a ?tip jar? because I want you to get something you want, rather than merely giving me a tip. Book reviews take time, particularly with the reading, which most book reviewers don?t do in full, and I typically do. (When I don?t, I mention that I scanned the book. Also, I never use the data that the PR flacks send out.)

Most people buying at Amazon do not enter via a referring website. Thus Amazon builds an extra 1-3% into the prices to all buyers to compensate for the commissions given to the minority that come through referring sites. Whether you buy at Amazon directly or enter via my site, your prices don?t change.

What to do when Ethics are Discouraged

What to do when Ethics are Discouraged

Photo Credit: elycefeliz
Photo Credit: elycefeliz || Enron and some other US corporations have been ethics-hostile places also

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Yesterday I gave a talk on ethics to the incoming class at?The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. ?As some of you might know, I received my BA and MA from Johns Hopkins in 1982 long before they had a business school. ?It was fun to talk to all of the entering MBA students who came to the school from all over the world. ?It largely serves international students.

At the end of my talk I took questions, both formally, and informally after the talk was over. ?The biggest question was, “Mr. Merkel, what you say about ethics might be the best policy for business in the US, but when I return to my home country, it will not be well-received. ?What should I do?”

This is a tough one. ?I think people have an easier time missing out on gains by being ethical than losing one’s job. ?But let me give a few ideas anyway.

  1. Many countries where business ethics aren’t practiced set themselves up for financial crises and scandals. ?One strategy could be to bide your time and wait for the next large scandal or crisis. ?Then suggest to your management (assuming your firm survived) that managing in an ethical way could prevent these problems, and potentially attract more business to your firm.
  2. Take a chance and try to create your country’s equivalent of Vanguard. ?Low cost, mostly passive investing, owned by clients, limited management salaries, etc.
  3. Same as #2, but if you get the chance to start or run any firm, adopt ethical practices and make it a selling point. ?You could be the start of cultural change. ?(Now elements of that could prove difficult if there are government officials expecting bribes… how you work that out is difficult. ?Friends of mine working as missionaries in corrupt countries tell me that you can still get things done without bribes, but it takes longer, with more effort.)
  4. Suggest to government ministers that a lack of ethics holds back growth. ?Countries with no bribery, low corruption, and moderate regulations tend to grow faster.
  5. Propose small experiments in your firm testing whether an ethical approach will produce better results.
  6. Consider working for a foreign firm in your country if they have ethical standards.
  7. Consider gaining experience in a country other than your home country, and propose to that firm that they try setting up a subsidiary in your home country.
  8. On the side, develop a voluntary organization that promotes ethical business conduct. ?Consider publishing some books that point out how unscrupulous business practices are harming most people. ?Recruit well-known foreign businessmen known for clean business practices to come talk in your country.

I can’t think of anything more right now. ?Readers, if you can think of other ideas, please mention them in the comments. ?Thanks.

PS — One more note, having worked for a few firms that were ethics-challenged as far as accounting and sales practices went, I can say that trying to promote change from inside is tough. ?Taking a job at another firm was my way out of those situations. ?No surprise that almost all of those firms failed.

Abusing Buffett’s Reputation for Profit

Abusing Buffett’s Reputation for Profit

Photo Credit: Fortune Live Media
Photo Credit: Fortune Live Media

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Yesterday, Berkshire Hathaway issued a press release:

WARNING ? On-Line Article Regarding Warren Buffett, BREXIT and Anderson Cooper is a Fraud

OMAHA, Neb.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A; BRK.B) ?

It has come to Berkshire?s attention that there is an article on-line concerning Warren Buffett and BREXIT with respect to a conversation that Mr. Buffett allegedly had with Anderson Cooper. The article is headlined as follows ? ?Warren Buffett Warns ?BREXIT? Chaos is going to cost Millions of Americans Jobs.? For the record, Mr. Buffett has not spoken with Anderson Cooper for about five years and never about BREXIT.

The article among other fraudulent claims states that Mr. Buffett spoke with Mr. Cooper and indicated that Mr. Buffett was recommending something called ?The Global Cash Code.? Allegedly, per the on-line article, Mr. Buffett indicated that Sandra Barnes, the party who allegedly created ?The Global Cash Code,? has been teaching people how to successfully use ?The Global Cash Code.? Prior to learning of this fraudulent article, Mr. Buffett has never spoken with or even heard of Sandra Barnes.

Contacts

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Marc D. Hamburg, 402-346-1400

There is no end of those that want to cash in on Warren Buffett. ?But those that know Buffett know that he doesn’t give investment advice aside from what he has written publicly himself. ?But to the uninformed, the pitch mentioned looks real enough.

I was curious, so I went looking for it, and I found a version of it here. ?It came up number one on my Google search. ?It looks like a fake CNN site, which fits the shtick of using Anderson Cooper interviewing Buffett. ?I decided to do a WHOIS search on the domain name “com-politics.us” to see if there was anything interesting. ?There was.

The domain was registered on June 28th, 2016. ?Here’s the data I found at the WHOIS site:

Name:?Devin Karapoulos
Organization:?Devin Karapoulos
Address:?1348 high bluff cir
City:?Park City
State / Province:?UT
Postal Code:?84060
Country:?United States
Phone:?1-435-214-1857
Email:?dkarapoulos@gmail.com

Now, that might not be the main site — the Global Cash Code site has hidden its owner, so you can’t tell, but who knows? ?That said, I can’t find another one. ?Maybe Mr. Karapoulos knows something about this misuse of Mr. Buffett’s name, likeness, and reputation.

Full disclosure: my clients and I own shares of BRK/B

How to Turn $25K into $35B (sort of)

How to Turn $25K into $35B (sort of)

Photo Credit: Nick Ares
Photo Credit: Nick Ares

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Would you like a 100?million-plus percent return on your money in a little more than four years? You would? Well, it can be done, but there are a couple of catches at the end that may prevent the enjoyment of the unearned riches.

Have a look at this article from Bloomberg.com: A $35 Billion Stock, an SEC Halt and Suspicions of Manipulation. ?Then meander, if you want, to the SEC EDGAR page for Neuromama.

If you read through the documents on Neuromama, it’s not different from what gets done with a penny stock to boost its value, and that is largely because it was a new penny stock when it was formed and started trading over-the-counter four years ago.

So how do you turn a sow’s ear into several billion silk purses? ?Simple:

  • In March 2011, start the?company for $3500. ?35MM shares at $0.001 each.
  • In 2012, sell?720,000 shares @ $0.03 each ($21,600) and go public. ?30x as expensive as the first valuation. ?Initial name is Trance Global.
  • In 2013, change the name to Neuromama, split the stock 750:1, and announce really big plans. ?Total shares: 3.1B+
  • Borrow $370,000?to develop a website, and do a few other things.
  • In late 2013,?acquire a Library of Entertainment Assets including variety shows, feature films, television pilots, etc. Acquire the Assets in exchange for 4,866,180 of new?common shares at a price of $20.55 (the closing price on September 3, 2013) for a total value of $100,000,000. ?The main owner cancels 80% of the?common shares (which belonged to him)?as an aspect of the deal.? (Note: no cash changes hands.) ?Total shares: ?630MM+
  • Never file another financial statement with the SEC. ?Issue occasional 8Ks, and engage in a running dialogue with the SEC over how the development stage company doesn’t earn any money and has negative tangible net worth.
  • Watch occasional minimal trading raise the price of the shares to $56+/sh. ?Market cap exceeds $35 Billion.
  • Watch the SEC halt trading.

In my opinion, buying the intangible assets and attributing a price of $20.55/share for the stock given in exchange?was the critical element of getting the market valuation so high. ?If you look at the graph at Bloomberg.com, and click the 5Y button, you will see that in late 2013 after the exchange was made, the stock price hovered in the $20s. ?(or, click on the image below for a static image of poorer quality abstracted from the Bloomberg website)

NERO_OTC US Stock Quote
Picture Credit: Bloomberg.com

Here is a?market cap of $35 billion for this stock with no business, no appreciable assets, no proprietary technology, no tangible net worth and no income — and can’t even do a few filings with the SEC. ?(It looks like they gave up talking in September 2014.)

So what is it worth? ?My best estimate is zero, to the nearest billion. 😉 ?This is still a cash-starved developmental stage business with no revenues after five or so years. ?It has?had the chance to bootstrap a business together, and there is nothing except the website. ?The price should drop to something near zero when trading resumes.

Even if trading had not been halted, the ability of the owners to realize the value would have been quite limited. ?All they would have had to do is sell a 100,000 shares, and the stock price would collapse, because there is no one out there with $5 million of real cash that wants to buy 0.015% of an empty company like Neuromama. ?The interesting question is “who has been trading the stock,” because it is strictly speculative. ?It is possible that related parties have slowly pushed the price up.

Anyway, this is a good reason to stay away from developmental stage companies — really, anything that doesn’t generate significant revenue. ?It is also a reason to watch the fundamentals of a company rather than the stock chart only, which in this case has run up hard since 2014, but on almost no volume. ?The market capitalization is an illusion if there is nothing that can produce the cash flow to justify it.

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