General Discussion – 8 February 2022

Hello readers! I wanted to get out a quick general discussion post today having built up some random nuggets that didn’t warrant full on articles. Plus, I have some general updates to get out. Let’s get started!

Topics for today:

• $ALPP – Shareholder letter fallout/share price
• $AITX – Upcoming deployments news
• $SIRC – More content to come
• Rant – Shells (GOFF, JPEX, etc.)
• General blog updates

ALPP – Shareholder Letter Fallout and the Share Price

At the time of writing this, ALPP’s share price has now dipped below 1.40. This is, in my opinion, directly related to the shareholder letter ALPP released last Friday. See my breakdown article here.

So for us current longs on ALPP, this obviously sucks to see and it’s no fun. Hell, I just entered a long position a few weeks ago and I’m already a bit in the red! That being said, I had a few thoughts…

First, I think this shareholder letter was a small “head’s up” to what we’re going to see in the 10k, likely released near the end of March. The market has, I think, already begun pricing in the relatively lackluster 10k that the shareholder letter implied.

So, that being said, if/when a lackluster 10k comes out, I wouldn’t expect a massive drop or anything. If there is one, I expect it to be temporary. Which brings me to my second point…

Purely opinion time, which is half the purpose of my general discussion series 😊, but I still think ALPP is firmly oversold right now. There was a lot of hype over the last 12 months or so around new technology and products that the company was planning to offer long-term, aka their “Driver” companies. I still think people are getting a tad impatient at this point expecting to already see see thousands of Vayu drones out their bedroom window shuttling cargo.

I think people originally had unrealistic expectations back in March, April, etc. last year, and now that the share price has corrected, people are still having unrealistic expectations.

If you’re long and still trust the process, management, and products ALPP is rolling out, consider this a nice buying opportunity. As people like to say, patience beats impatience when it comes to investing. Give the business time, this is an odd period for businesses with COVID, inflation, supply shortages, whatever. So try and keep some patience.

Investing in companies you believe in doesn’t mean you’ll win every time, but it can certainly help your odds!

$AITX – Upcoming Deployments News

While it wasn’t sales PR which a lot of us were hoping for (not to say it won’t come this week 😊), AITX announced today that it was pushing out almost 20 units for deployment this month. This includes two ROAMEOs, which are really the hot ticket item for the company.

Some people may disagree with me here, but I am firmly in the camp that more deployments will inevitably (AITX punchline insert intended) drive even more sales. Why is that?

It’s quite simple. AITX has had well documented trouble with getting companies to adopt this new technology. I get it…it’s robots, it’s different, the older generation running many of these companies are hesitant to try groundbreaking things.

However, when the 50-year-old facilities director of XYZ company takes their kids to Six Flags this summer, they’re going to see an 800 pound absolute unit of a ROAMEO coasting around. These products are going to be highly visible and will, over time, make people much more comfortable with the technology. That facilities director, or whoever, is going to see these products in person, read about them on the news, whatever, and think “well if they can do it, why can’t we?”

This is why I think these deployments, especially something as highly visible as a ROAMEO, will be the start of a wave of acceptance in the industry, which will only benefit AITX.

As a side point, from back in my consulting days, common phrases I used to hear were: “What are your other clients doing?” and “Who have you done this for before?”. Those two questions will be extremely easy to answer in a few weeks and should put prospective companies at ease. Nobody wants to move first, but after that nobody wants to be last 😊.

However, I try to be a flag bearer of impartiality, so I must point this out. The highly visible nature of these products could have the opposite effect.

I hypothesize that Knightscope, AITX’s primary competitor, caught the brunt of this. I won’t link it here as to be nice, but Knightscope is probably more well known for their infamous “Robot driving into a mall fountain” incident. I think that the picture of that robot face down in the fountain like a drunk guy after a football game was probably more publicity to the company than their slew of ads leading up to the IPO.

I’m not saying that’s going to happen to AITX, but you can’t always have potential good publicity without potential bad publicity.

SIRC -Message to my new Readers

It’s actually been really fun writing about a new company in SIRC lately. So, naturally I have several articles lined up that I want to write so you can get your DD fix.

Just a couple notes on SIRC for my new readers. I’m not a blind pumper, I want to keep things as factual as possible and insert opinions when I feel it’s appropriate. You might not agree with me on points, but I just like to remind my readers that I don’t have some grand master plan of shorting anything. But I’m also not just going to sit here and tell you everything with SIRC is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Believe me, if I really hated a company and its fundamentals, I wouldn’t be writing about it in the first place. They’d likely get a call out in a rant section of my general discussion posts (see below), but I don’t find bashing companies to be that fun. I like to write about real companies with potential. Bashing bad companies is a waste of time, in my opinion.

You can probably read between the lines then that I generally believe in the three companies I cover right now (AITX, ALPP, and SIRC). It doesn’t mean I’m going to believe in them forever and I may have bearish sentiment one day. But when that day comes, I’ll make my opinions clear and lay out why I don’t like them, and then move on to other companies to cover.

So, all in all, super excited to get more SIRC content out because I am a fan of the company (although I don’t have a position in it yet), but don’t expect blind pumping.

Rant – Shells

I tweeted about this the other day, and I think I ruffled some feathers. But my god, the number of people who still buy shells like $GOFF, $JPEX, etc. is absolutely astounding.

For those of you that don’t know, buying a shell on the OTC is literally investing in an empty company, likely already with debt and maybe even paying its CEO some salary, just because they might do something. I think of them like bargain bin SPACs. You’re basically just investing in some random person, likely who isn’t very qualified because they’re on the OTC, to go do “something” one day with your money.

What will these shells do one day? They’re basically going to purchase some company using the shares that investors are artificially raising the price of. These shells HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING. They are taking hyped up high share prices of EMPTY COMPANIES to buy some other business that YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT WILL BE.

For all you know, they could just do nothing, or they could buy like the worst company imaginable, and you’re forced to go along with it! Hell, I’ve even seen shells buy other shells! It’s incredible and they’re a blight on the OTC, which already has enough reputational problems as it is.

For all of you gamers out there, think of pre-ordering a game. You can choose to pre-order a game from a real studio like Bethesda, Activision, etc. for like 60 bucks. Think of those as your SPACs being formed.

Or, you can pre-order a different game for 600 dollars, which is being developed by a studio that consists of one guy who lives alone in his mom’s basement. This guy, however, hypes a game up that may or may not even exist, but tells you it’s going to be the next Skyrim. Why? Because he said so. When will it come out? I dunno, but buy!

That’s basically what you’re doing when you’re investing in shells on the OTC. Please please please please stop doing it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, just go down to your local gas station and buy scratch offs instead, at least you’ll support your local schools.

Sorry to pick on GOFF and JPEX investors, but these are prime examples that are traded at astounding levels. For my own sanity, I hope it’s people just day-trading these companies or something, but based on the Twitter feed for many shells, it’s many times actual long-term investors…

Rant over.

General Blog Updates

In case anyone’s interested, here’s some quick hitter blog updates.

First, I’m still pressing along with my microcap analysis guide. It’s going to take a bit of time to get through it all, but I’m making progress! I’m hoping that in the long-term, this guide becomes the backbone of my content, and I will work my DD around the steps of my guide. So more exciting stuff to come there.

Second, nothing confirmed, but I have some tentative plans to do some occasional livestream/Q&A’s in the future. I will likely start doing them contingent on some goal, like reaching 1,000 Twitter followers, etc. Likely format would be doing quick analyses/discussions on tickers that the chat wants me to look at, answering general questions, etc. Maybe I’ll even show my face, but we’ll see!

I’ll have a formal announcement on format and any associated goals if I decide to move ahead.

Last point, and more of a call to action, I’ve still noticed that a huge chunk of my regular readers are not Twitter followers, nor email subscribers. It would help a lot to drop me a follow/subscribe as it’s the best way to keep in touch. But it’s your life, so up to you 😊.

If you’re interested in email subscribing, there’s a form in the side bar.

Anyways, that’s all for me! Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to support me on Patreon, I’ve provided a link here: https://www.patreon.com/SamAkerFinance

DISCLAIMER – AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS ARTICLE I DO NOT HAVE A POSITION IN $SIRC, AND I HAVE A LONG POSITION IN $AITX AND $ALPP. THIS ARTICLE IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE AND IS INTENDED ONLY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR. AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS ARTICLE, PERSONS AFFILIATED WITH THE COMPANY ANALYZED ABOVE MAY BE PROVIDING MONETARY COMPENSATION AS MONTHLY PATRONS THROUGH MY PATREON. THIS COMPENSATION IS NOT PROVIDED IN RETURN FOR ANY SERVICE, WRITING ABOUT A PARTICULAR TOPIC, AND/OR FAVORABLE OR UNFAVORABLE OPINIONS. MY PATREON SUPPORTERS HAVE NO INFLUENCE ON THE CONTENT OF MY ARTICLES.