Before you step into the 2017 SEC Comment Letters and if you are new to TITAN MACHINERY (NASDAQ: TITN) colorful stock trading, you can click here to see the history of BIZARRE hype.
Including, but not limited to:
- Suspicious Trading with no news, Oh wait, we found out following week Auditor Resigned
- FY2017 Sales declined vs FY2016, a look at how 2016 declined vs FY2015
- CoFounder of Company is an Underwriter and sits on board.
- Why did company spend millions to build new stores after announcing they are closing 26 (11 already closed and 15 to close this quarter) of the companies 112 Locations they had in 2015?
- Inflating Assets and Under Reporting Losses by 50%
- CEO hyping company future on CNBC MAD MONEY with Jim Cramer and selling 30 days later with stock near its all time high @ $30
- SEC COMMENT LETTERS from 2015 Regarding DEF14A And 10K filings
- Disclosing they were non-compliant with $150 Million Wells Fargo Note.
- A Local Minnesota Brokerage Firm who Gave Guidance 6 months before the year ended that Titan would earn $0.37 a share for the year and company instead loss ($1.76) per share.
- Related Party Transactions: Company signed leases with outside entity that management had equity stake in for over $100 Million.
- President/CoFounder resigning after a DEF14A was filed with SEC.
- Company Private Aircraft
- History of Hyped Guidance only to see OFFICERS SELLING into spikes and then company missing the hyped guidance by miles.
On January 26,2017 the Securities and Commission's Division of Corporate Finance sent the following Comment Letter to Titan Machinery after a review of the Company's FY2016 Annual 10K filed back in April 2016.
The Comment Letter requested clearer and more transparent disclosure regarding Titan's Adjusted EBITDA, Inventory and Wells Fargo Credit Agreement.
On February 9, 2017 Titan filed a Correspondent in response to the SEC comment letter and agreed to make changes regarding each disclosure.
What's is so strange is that FY2017 ended on January 31,2017 and the company's guidance regarding the FY2017 top line sales number were lower than the Actual Number that was reported on March 30,2017 causing the company to BEAT THE TOP LINE on the morning of the Year end press release.
What's even more bizarre is that the company expected to lose ($0.20) but instead loss ($0.31). The Top Line Beat was celebrated by Wall Street sending the shares up from under $13 on Monday to close the week above $15 at a $330 million market capitalization.
Chart is an image from BigCharts.com
In April 2014 Titan Machinery shares traded @ $15.50 and the company reported FY2015 sales of $2.2 Billion and the company was profitable.
Over the last 3 years since April 2014 the company has reported losses for a combined ($84 Million) and recently announced FY2017 Sales of less than $800 million in equipment for the entire year.
Meanwhile the Stock closed yesterday @ $15.50 and remains at a $300+ million market capitalization.
So What drove the stock higher? Was it FY2018 Guidance?
CEO David Meyer on the conference call last week WARNED THAT Agriculture and Construction EQUIPMENT SALES WILL FALL FURTHER IN FY2018!!!
READERS at SEEKINGALPHA are asking "WHAT IS SUPPORTING THE STOCK?"
After doing some Digging to find out what was catalyst to drive this thinly traded Titan Machinery micro cap stock with a mere 21 million shares outstanding skyward.
I am not a subscriber to TheStreet.com Real Money services but I did find someone who profited from buying the TITAN SPIKE and congratulated Real Money author REVSHARK on twitter.
