It’s intellectually lazy to always blame downward price movement on shorters and manipulators. The stock sold off because the news release disappointed investors. That's all. With some basic analysis and some critical thinking, the following could be determined from the provided information:
1. Q4 revenue will be in the neighborhood of 8.1 million; this is flat to negative growth over last FY’s Q4. I think that investors were expecting more.
2. This puts FY 24 revenue at roughly 26.5 million. This equates to a FY over FY rev growth of 26% ish. We had 3% inflation, so strip this out and that gives 23% growth in real terms. Decent, but short of the "30% or higher" growth rate that Bill always alludes to. Arguably the 30 plus percent is a longer-term average, but given the unprecedented demand environment that Bill has been describing for the last few years, if they can’t hit the target now, when will they hit it?
3. Gem steam trap orders fell FY over FY. I don't think anyone was expecting this.
4. There was no mention of PDA's which is concerning since PDA's had become their favourite metric to tout. Did they complete a bunch of PDA's that didn't result in orders? The western countries are in the process of exchanging their left wing governments for right wing governments. A main platform piece of the right is to do away with carbon taxes/pricing etc. When you consider that carbon tax savings is a key component of the payback period calculation, we can't discount the possiblility that companies are holding out to see what happens on the political landscape.
Something else troubling is that we're in the middle of the "Great Rotation" from giant tech into small caps.The Russell 2000 was up 10% in less than a week which if you follow that index, is a massive move. Microcaps we're benefiting from that trend, and the tide was lifting TMG's boat as well. Why did they decide to put out the NR when they did? Are they still paying MBC?
All this being said, the market is forward looking, and most of this should now be priced in. One group of investors has been exchanged for another group, albeit at a lower price, and we're back to where we always seem to be, waiting for something positive to happen.