turar Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 This is somewhat in a response to a recent call for original ideas. How about this one? I don't have a write-up really, but valuation looks pretty cheap. GTAT is being hammered like other solar stocks, yet it's moving away from being a purely "solar" company. They're selling equipment to solar manufacturers, but are also growing their non-solar business. They're guiding for $1.30-1.40 EPS for 2012 calendar year, current stock price is $4.18. About $350M in cash against $500M market cap and $75M debt. Market concerns are most likely possible order cancellations from the existing backlog, and recent US government tariffs against Chinese solar manufacturers. Latest call transcript: http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/earnings-call-transcript.aspx?t=GTAT®ion=USA&culture=en-us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Well this stock just got really interesting. Ouch... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Maybe Apple will buy them now for a song. They certainly have some cool technology. http://www.technologyreview.com/photoessay/530656/cheap-scratch-resistant-displays/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Wowza, look at these convertible bonds for GTAT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBird Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 As a broker I see a lot of folly in client accounts but today I saw craziness on a whole new level. Client's net worth 1 month ago was $18 million. He was all-in on GTAT- fully leveraged- account equity was at ~33%. He also owned about 4,000 calls of various strike prices on GTAT. Today his account net worth is negative $1.4 million. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Something to do with that nobel price on LED this year? Since this is a led company. I think they got the full spectrum now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beerbaron Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Something to do with that nobel price on LED this year? Since this is a led company. I think they got the full spectrum now. Not sure if we should consider them as a LED company per se. Most LEDs are grown on a sapphire just like a plant grows on dirt, it just won't grow without it. Most LEDs keep the sapphire they were grown on when they are packaged as a finished electronic component. Hence, representing a significant cost, if a company can make sapphire 1/10th of the previous thickness then they can reduce the costs of LEDs by a good amount. BeerBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nkp007 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 As a broker I see a lot of folly in client accounts but today I saw craziness on a whole new level. Client's net worth 1 month ago was $18 million. He was all-in on GTAT- fully leveraged- account equity was at ~33%. He also owned about 4,000 calls of various strike prices on GTAT. Today his account net worth is negative $1.4 million. :o That is unbelievable. Why would the Client put himself in a position to have to start at GO? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 As a broker I see a lot of folly in client accounts but today I saw craziness on a whole new level. Client's net worth 1 month ago was $18 million. He was all-in on GTAT- fully leveraged- account equity was at ~33%. He also owned about 4,000 calls of various strike prices on GTAT. Today his account net worth is negative $1.4 million. Ugh it makes me want to puke. Someone get that guy a few beers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nodnub Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 As a broker I see a lot of folly in client accounts but today I saw craziness on a whole new level. Client's net worth 1 month ago was $18 million. He was all-in on GTAT- fully leveraged- account equity was at ~33%. He also owned about 4,000 calls of various strike prices on GTAT. Today his account net worth is negative $1.4 million. Ugh it makes me want to puke. Someone get that guy a few beers. who knows, maybe the guy has 100 million in other assets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Guys with $100 million of other assets don't trade like that. They settle it all in cash not on margin. Because the guys with $100 million get there by surviving drops like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBird Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 who knows, maybe the guy has 100 million in other assets. Well, I do. Haha There's a note in the account where he explains how he's going to bring in the money due. Step 1) Liquidate IRA worth 600k and move funds. Step 2) Parents will be wiring in 500k tomorrow. Step 3) Remaining balance paid by Jan '15. As a sick twist to all this, our Margins department liquidated the entire account yesterday to stop the bleeding. He therefore missed the stock's 70% rise today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
investor-man Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 who knows, maybe the guy has 100 million in other assets. Well, I do. Haha There's a note in the account where he explains how he's going to bring in the money due. Step 1) Liquidate IRA worth 600k and move funds. Step 2) Parents will be wiring in 500k tomorrow. Step 3) Remaining balance paid by Jan '15. As a sick twist to all this, our Margins department liquidated the entire account yesterday to stop the bleeding. He therefore missed the stock's 70% rise today. Ugh... Sad story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 He needs the stock to go to zero now. Or else his parents are wiring in 500k to watch their son jump off a bridge. There would be nothing worse than to see the stock go up significantly from here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 http://forum.thecontrarianinvestor.com/index.php?threads/gt-advanced-technologies-inc-gtat.69/page-527#post-25571 Another sad story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter1234 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 As a broker I see a lot of folly in client accounts but today I saw craziness on a whole new level. Client's net worth 1 month ago was $18 million. He was all-in on GTAT- fully leveraged- account equity was at ~33%. He also owned about 4,000 calls of various strike prices on GTAT. Today his account net worth is negative $1.4 million. Thanks for sharing. Always good to think about the downside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BargainValueHunter Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 If I had all of my money split between BRK, T-Bills and real estate...just those three solid asset classes...I'd be a tiny bit nervous. So I can't even begin to imagine why someone would go all in on such a risky stock. But then again...I am a Fairholme client so perhaps I can't talk, HA! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharth18 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Why why why...do people need to leverage themselves/go all in? Is the agony of the defeat worth the glory of victory? Assuming you have a net worth of $1 million...even if there are good odds of quadrupling or quintupling your money, or losing all (or even half) of it...why in the world would you take this bet? Why would you want to try to be worth $4 million when doing so can potentially give up everything you have? Why, just why? I've been investing for about 2 years now and even though I like to think I know about the companies I invest in, I have 90% of my net worth in cash. That has meant that I've missed the great bull run starting from 2012 and seen others' net worth double, or more, while mine has remained flat but I'm content. I value safety of capital, and peace of mind more than any glamour or glitz that could potentially come with added risk taking. I'm still very nervous and I feel like I don't have much experience or have seen how bad things could get in a bear market. Reminds me of that anecdote where Jeff Bezos asks Buffett why no one invests the way he does, and Buffet says it's because no one wants to get rich slowly... Buffett also something along the lines that he would never play russian roulette even if the gun had a million chambers and no matter how good the odds, or how big the payout was. He simply won't do it. Oh and this ... http://finance.yahoo.com/tumblr/blog-gtat-put-activity-was-off-the-charts-prior-to-bk-filing-174443091.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSArbitrage Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 who knows, maybe the guy has 100 million in other assets. Well, I do. Haha There's a note in the account where he explains how he's going to bring in the money due. Step 1) Liquidate IRA worth 600k and move funds. Step 2) Parents will be wiring in 500k tomorrow. Step 3) Remaining balance paid by Jan '15. As a sick twist to all this, our Margins department liquidated the entire account yesterday to stop the bleeding. He therefore missed the stock's 70% rise today. LOL, really? What an idiot. I would use the "come and get me" approach and file for bankruptcy ASAP. That's good money after bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Why why why...do people need to leverage themselves/go all in? Is the agony of the defeat worth the glory of victory? Assuming you have a net worth of $1 million...even if there are good odds of quadrupling or quintupling your money, or losing all (or even half) of it...why in the world would you take this bet? Why would you want to try to be worth $4 million when doing so can potentially give up everything you have? Why, just why? The gambling gene. Some have it, some don't. You likely don't have it as a value investor. Some have this extreme urge to gamble. It is almost self destructive. Iv met a few people like that. It bothers them if they have money for some reason. They have this constant itch to go allin on something and feel the thrill of putting it all on the line. I think this is mostly genetic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephistopheles Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 As a broker I see a lot of folly in client accounts but today I saw craziness on a whole new level. Client's net worth 1 month ago was $18 million. He was all-in on GTAT- fully leveraged- account equity was at ~33%. He also owned about 4,000 calls of various strike prices on GTAT. Today his account net worth is negative $1.4 million. Wow. If you don't mind sharing, how old is he? Given his parents are bailing him out, I'm assuming he's not too old. And how did he build such a large fortune to begin with? My guess is that he just got enormously lucky speculating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gg Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Has anyone done any research on the GTAT capital structure? I saw the bonds have traded down to 30-40 cents on the dolla, and plan to look into it. Curious if anyone knows if there's any sell side coverage on GTATs debt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBird Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 As a broker I see a lot of folly in client accounts but today I saw craziness on a whole new level. Client's net worth 1 month ago was $18 million. He was all-in on GTAT- fully leveraged- account equity was at ~33%. He also owned about 4,000 calls of various strike prices on GTAT. Today his account net worth is negative $1.4 million. Wow. If you don't mind sharing, how old is he? Given his parents are bailing him out, I'm assuming he's not too old. And how did he build such a large fortune to begin with? My guess is that he just got enormously lucky speculating. I didn't look at his age. Good guess on the speculation strategy. 5 years ago his account net worth was 250k. 3 years ago it was 2 million. 1 year ago it was 6 million. 1 month ago it was 18 million. Didn't check what the net contributions were over that time though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
writser Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Was nobody slapping some sense in him at any given time? I feel sorry for the guy but stuff like this was bound to happen one day. This would be my last post on this forum. I am officially signing off. Thanks for all the contributions. I am still in shock and all the money is gone and I owe $107K in margin accounts. I have prepare my profit and loss for filing a case and here the final numbers. This is a lesson for everybody not to be greedy and stupid. These are just stocks, options of around $140K is not in there. Basically my net loss is around $750K in stocks and $140K in options. All my earnings for the past 15 years are gone in one night. All I can wish is, all of family members of TG and the crooked directors face some grueling death. Yesterday I was in the verge of committing suicide myself and with a loving family, I didn't have the courage. Good bye to all. Time to start Life 2.0 From the guy on the contrarian investor. Again, very sad story but how the hell do you manage to work yourself into a position like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 well with a 135% IRR over 5 years. It is also the worst stock to do this on lol. Some black box tech stock. I mean if he would have done it heavily levered on the BAC warrants or something.. Also don't understand how you can do this with a family when you have freaking 18 million. You really have a gambling problem, or are incredibly stupid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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