Wino115 wrote: I don't go for that argument they are stating either. Non-sensical. First off, very rarely will a biotech move on stating they are going to be filing a protocal, even if for a large indication. That just doesn't happen. In fact, getting a Phase 3 approval doesn't always even do much. In this case, given the odd path and different data set, it may move some because of the validation. So they shouldn't have been thinking just announcing your filing would do a whole lot.
This was a bit different as they were surprising the market with the move from HIV NASH to general NASH - I was surprised by the lack of reaction to that as it really was big, big news. Everyone here has the right point -- they have to first execute and get these projects across the finish line so investors looking out will start factoring in various scenarios. At this point, it's really all a lot of talk and not a lot of fact. I think they'll get there, but I think they need to cross the finish line because of the past disappointment, poor share price reaction and lack of anyone really following them. Stock prices will react to factual content and actual events more than talk.
TH has done a lot of things right and executed on a quite a number of things over the last year culminating in the general NASH announcement and without there really being any positive reaction in the stock. They also have not had a lot of terrible things announced either. TH is clearly in a much better spot now then it was about a year ago, yet the stock is lower. Management has executed on a lot of things well and the stock is just not getting anything for that. So, if you were the management and board, you would be searching for answers too. I think they don't realize how tough it is to be a microcap with horrible average volume.
I think they do realize it and that is why they think they need to diversify the shareholder base. That may be the wrong reaction but they are no doubt as frustrated as shareholders are by the lack of favorable stock price movement despite a continuously improving situation which is the result of their hard work. It doesn turn off bigger shareholders but selling a few more shares a low prices won't necessarily increase trading. In fact, you should hope everyone buying those new shares has a long-term view and would want to hold them, i.e., not flip and frantically trade them.
THere is one simple way to solve all of this and it's not some magic formula. If you can move forward with positive solid corporate developments that are clearly value-enhancing, the market will take notice.
They have and it hasn't. Or, perhaps more realistically, the market has taken notice but the stock's market cap is too low for them to act on what they see. You will see the price rise and trading increase such that anyone who wants to buy a sizable stake should be able to. The reason is that the price should be higher allowing for those larger orders. It's that same "spigot" analogy -- you need to get to $500mil and then $1bil in market cap. At $500mil there's still $300-400mil in value trading around. At $1bil there's $600-800 mil tradging around. Today, there's only $100mil trading around. But you can't tell me if there is a convincing case backed up by both trials starting and a bit of data from them that you are successfully moving toward showing your cancer drug works or that you can meet the endpoints for a NASH trial that the stock won't react to that and rise substantially. It will becuase the price mostly reacts to that forward view of asset values and cash flows they spin-off. Plenty of large investors I know would start to buy positions, even $5-10mil positions, knowing it can get to the size they want over time and over time with a higher market cap they can buy more.
I was buying recently and even relatively small purchases by institutional standards were moving the stock more than I would ahve liked. Any effort to buy $5 million would likely send the stock soaring and the buyer would back off. They won't look to buy the entire position before the news because it's risky and it may be hard. But they'll certainly look to buy more with more solid news, less risk in their scenarios and a higher market cap. They'll give up that first or second or even third rally, happy to find something they're more confident with even though it's up. They'll have more confidence in the next 100-200% run and any good PM won't turn that opportunity down IF THEY ARE CONVINCED.
So the chain is -- execute so you have convincing facts, watch those move the share up, hence market cap and trading, execute with more convincing facts, etc.... the cycle moves the other way. But just talking about a trial isn't a convincing fact. There is a possibility it moves from strength to strength if they execute and the trials line up like they think they will. If so, they don't need to worry and sell out cheap.
But having long-term shareholders, in limiting the supply, will be a super-positive for the share if and when they actually produce convincing facts that affect future asset and revenue values. We just haven't seen any of the latter yet. A good example to back up our argument and blow theirs up are those few days it spiked on news -- it wasn't factually convinving, just talk, so it fell back. But had that been the news of actual execution followed up by a continuing stream of convincing facts it would be on it's way.
As we have said, the communications strategy has been weak. Since the people who run TH are human beings, the reaction to our criticism on that has likely been sub-optimal. But that is one area where they have come up short consistently. Management has actually done a lot of good things and very few bad things but the communication of these advancements have been weak. It is not hard to look around the market and find examples of many, many companies who are effective at selling hope rather than facts and which have a market cap many times that of TH. TH is a real outlier in this regard. Those small companies often are pursuing a retail investor relations strategy because they are small and can't get the attention of institutional investors. TH has a story that is very good, a management team that has delivered the goods consistently and should be of interest to institutional investors. Not all institutional investors need for the phase III NASH trial to be approved byt he FDA to invest, some will do their analysis and make a bet on them getting the approval. And I think we can accurately infer from what we have heard from the company and seen in the ADC cancer market that the interest TH is getting from cancer analysts/PM's is real but they will likely only buy TH stock in a deal. TH does not have to sell stock to those interested in its cancer play. They can make them buy it on the market if they want to get in early and some will no doubt do that. But the game is normally for those institutional investors to come waving the big bucks to get a chunk of stock at low prices without impacting the market and it is hard for management and boards to resist. I have seen it happen over and over again in my many years in the market. So far, it seems TH has resisted and kudos to them for doing so. But it also means, if they don't pursue a more retail oriented IR strategy in the meantime, the TH stock price could be not going anywhere fast until the NASH approval is received or the cancer phase I results are released. There are other options to fix this and my preferred one would be to do a limited partnership agreement with a big pharma company on cancer that provides validation for TH's approach as that would raise cash and likely cause the stock price to better reflect the real value of the company without diluting us long, long, long term faithful shareholders. They are wrong.
qwerty22 wrote: Is it too difficult to pursue both and see which one works? What do they have to do to attract retail?
SPCEO1 wrote: The CFO and IR said this on separate calls within the last couple of months. My guess is they were trying to figure out how the stock did not react positively to the general NASH news. And they may be right about that too, at least in the short term. If the FDA approves their phase III NASH trial and the stock doesn't move, then that would be strong evidence they are right. But I think the stock would react to news if they had a retail investor strategy versus an institutional one at this point. Institutions cannot buy such a small cap stock.
longterm56 wrote: Who at the company conveyed this to you? If it was the IR lady, she's making excuses. So, all the following makes the stock price go down.. - shorts - weak handed longs - long term holders - tax loss selling - poor sales - poor communication THTX has all the above. Pretty sad. -LT
SPCEO1 wrote: I think you are blaming me for a