NTN Buzztime Announces Meeting with Shareholders. Stock Falls Sharply for second day.
NTN Buzztime Announces Meeting with Shareholders. Stock Falls for second day.
Buzztime has been moving uphill since September, and in last 45 days had some significant jumps. In mid September NTN was trading around $1.60pps and by end of January had hit highs above $5.20pps
That all ended in the last 2 days. Buzztime NTN fell on Wednesday this week by 20% intraday, from $6.38 to $4.82.
Just 2 hours after the market closed they released press and what was already a bad day got a bit worse.
By Market open today NTN shares started trading at $4.55 and have stayed under $5 most of the day.
NTN News -NTN Buzztime Announces Date of Special Meeting of Stockholders to Vote on Proposed Merger and Asset Sale
Fact Inc Adding Heavyweights to its Board of Directors OTC-FCTI
Fact Inc. just started trading under the ticker (OTC: FCTI), and has immediately made some major additions to its team, showing the public and its investors that it is focused on putting an end to art fraud.
Click here to read recent article on Fact Inc
- Today, February 2nd 2021 Fact Inc. (OTC: FCTI) Announced that internationally recognized curator and art expert, Jean-David Malat, has joined its Advisory Board.
Fact Inc Jean David Malat[/caption]
“Mr. Malat is one of the world’s most respected and influential art dealers, described as ‘the best connected man in London’ by The Times, and ‘London’s most in demand guru’ by Metro Newspaper. For more than 15 years he has built a clientele of high-profile clients, including Kate Moss, Bono and Madonna. Born in Paris and now in the UK, Mr. Malat trained at Sotheby’s, established in 1744 and now the world’s largest, most trusted and dynamic marketplace for fine art, jewelry and collectables spanning 40 countries. During the early years of his career, Mr. Malat curated impressive collections with the collaboration of various world famous museums and foundations such as The Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan. In 2007, he redesigned the art-on-display for the opening of the Théâtre Mogador in Paris, and the following year achieved a significant career milestone, acquiring and selling two late-period Picasso paintings in the middle of the 2008 Recession.”
- On the 14th of January Fact Inc. (OTC:FCTI) Announced that former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers Wood had joined its Board of Directors.
Fact Inc Julie Myers Wood[/caption]
“Ms. Wood is an esteemed regulatory compliance and security expert with over 25 years of achievements in the public, private and political sectors. After graduating from Cornell Law School, Ms. Wood began her career as a lawyer at leading firm Mayer, Brown & Platt in Chicago. Her career has been focused on regulatory and enforcement issues through her various roles including defense counsel, government investigator, federal prosecutor, and compliance consultant.”
Fact Inc. Company Description
Fact, Inc. (OTC:FCTI) focuses on developing forensic technology for the art and collectibles market. The company is developing a front-end user interface, as well as modifying existing ballistics firmware for a comprehensive verification, tracking, and reporting system. Using white light interferometry, FACT takes a non-destructive 3D digital fingerprint of the art using approximately 100,000 unique images. It offers a suite of products that include authentication, condition reporting, GPS tracking, and provenance data, as well as collection management stored on blockchain accessible in real time to the consumer. The company’s software application is applicable to various channels in the fine art and collectible industry, including S secured lending, insurance, dealers, auction houses, and grading companies. The company was formerly known as Tiburon International Trading Corp. and changed its name to Fact, Inc. in November 2020. FACT, Inc. is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. As of October 5, 2020, Fact, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Kryptos Art Technologies, Inc.
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FCBK Receives Business Enterprise Award
CERRITOS, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–First Choice Bank (OTCQX: FCBK) (the “Bank”) is honored to be recognized once again for the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Fund’s Business Enterprise Award. The Bank has been a recipient every year since 2011.
Editors Comment : FCBK current ppc is $23.50, with very low daily volume. Don’t expect to see much change over the near future.
The Bank is pleased that its commitment and dedication to financing and supporting community activities, especially for low and moderate income communities, is recognized by the US Treasury Department’s CDFI. The CDFI’s 2016 grant award recognizes and rewards the Bank’s continuing efforts to increase its lending and service activities within the economically distressed communities that the Bank serves.
First Choice Bank is a community focused financial institution serving diverse consumers and commercial clients, as a CDFI bank. Peter Hui, the Bank’s Chairman, said, “We are very proud of all of our efforts to make our community prosper. It is gratifying to receive this award as recognition of that commitment.”
ABOUT FIRST CHOICE BANK
First Choice Bank, headquartered in Cerritos, California, is a community focused financial institution, serving diverse consumers and commercial clients and specializing in loans to small businesses, Private Banking clients, Commercial and Industrial (C&I) loans, and commercial real estate loans with a niche in providing finance for the hospitality industry. The Bank is a Preferred Small Business Administration (SBA) Lender. Founded in 2005, First Choice Bank has quickly become a leading provider of financial services that enable our customers to grow, maintain strength, and reach unprecedented levels of success. We strive to surpass our clients’ expectations through our efficiency and professionalism and are committed to being “First in Speed, Service, and Solutions.” First Choice Bank stock is traded on the Over the Counter (OTCQX); our Ticker Symbol is FCBK.
The Bank’s web site is www.FirstChoiceBankCA.com.
Here’s How And Why BREAKING DATA CORP COM NPV (OTCMKTS:BKDCF) Is Dominating The Online Media Space
If a group of people was asked to name the publishing outlet that commands the biggest Facebook page (as defined by the largest number of individual members), chances are companies like BBC or Mashable would be top of the list. Narrow it down to sports media outlets and ESPN would be a top contender. Very few people, if anyone, would return an answer of GiveMeSport. With more than 24 million followers, however, and more than 26 million likes (as of late July 2017) the publisher outperforms all of the above-mentioned household names. For reference, ESPN has the next largest single sports publisher Facebook page with 17 million members.
Why is this important?
Facebook is quickly becoming one of the largest and most prominent news aggregators in the world. The social media platform is an integral part of any content publisher’s arsenal and its dominance in the content serving and sharing space is only expected to grow over the coming decade.
Companies are rushing to figure out how to take advantage of this trend and are having varying degrees of success to this aim. The above mentioned Mashable has created its own technology, called Velocity, that helps it to predict which stories are likely to go viral and when and, in doing so, allows it to capitalize on this early stage information.
Other companies haven’t had as much luck.
The ever changing algorithms that underpin Facebook’s content delivery platform make it difficult to find a sweet spot and even more difficult to maintain it.
So how has GiveMeSport managed to amass such a large following?
The answer is rooted in the company that’s behind the outlet – BREAKING DATA CORP COM NPV (OTCMKTS:BKDCF) (BKD.V) (CVE:BKD). Breaking Data acquired GiveMeSport back in December 2016 and has spent the last six months incorporating its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) technology into the media outlet’s day to day activity. With this acquisition, not only has Breaking Data given GiveMeSport a considerable technological advantage over its peers, it’s also served to offer public markets an exposure to the outlet’s success (which is what drew the attention of our analysts).
Breaking Data acquired GiveMeSport back in December 2016 and has spent the last six months incorporating its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) technology into the media outlet’s day to day activity. With this acquisition, not only has Breaking Data given GiveMeSport a considerable technological advantage over its peers, it’s also served to offer public markets an exposure to the outlet’s success (which is what drew the attention of our analysts).
By way of a quick introduction to GiveMeSport and for those not familiar with the platform, it’s a news and entertainment outlet that – as implied by its name – focuses on serving sports related content to its users. The platform is fronted by a website, www.givemesport.com, and traffic is directed to the site through various social channels, including the above mentioned Facebook page.
While this is a website at core, the key thing to recognize here is that Facebook is the real growth driver for the outlet. Its founders are ex-Facebook strategists for various sports stars in the sports and entertainment space and the experience drawn from this side of the operation is what feeds into the company’s success i its Facebook endeavors today.
The way it works is as follows: Breaking Data and GiveMeSport have developed an AI technology that is able to track changes in Facebook’s content algorithm (not directly, but through the impact of the changes on the way the platform’s users interact with GiveMeSport’s content). When it detects changes, it automatically suggests strategic alterations that not only limit the impact of changes on the company’s content’s reach, but also seek to capitalize on it.
This AI approach is what sets GiveMeSport and Breaking Data aside from other publishers in this space. Whereas another publisher may take a 30% hit to its traffic on the back of a Facebook algorithm change and not be able to recover from the hit, GiveMeSport’s AI technology detects the change, mitigates its impact and alters the company’s strategy to try and take advantage of what is ultimately hurting its competitors.
All this is great but it means nothing to an investor in Breaking Data if it doesn’t translate to revenue – so how does Breaking Data generate sales on the traffic it’s attracting through its GiveMeSport platform?
Just as is the case with the vast majority of internet publishers, the answer is through online advertising.
With 32 million monthly visitors (this is a six month old metric but it’s the best we have available, chances are the figure is higher now) GiveMeSport has a very large audience to which it can serve advertisements of all shapes and sizes. Additionally, with a sporting focus, this audience is not only very large, it’s also very diverse. NFL, NHL and NBA fans comprise a large portion of the site’s users and each of these offers a different demographic and user type to the advertisers that want to gain exposure to a potential sales base through the platform.
To date, some of the biggest names in the world have advertised through the GiveMeSport platform, including Mercedes Benz, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (ETR:BMW), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) and Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA). These are billion dollar companies achieving quantifiable results through a relationship with GiveMeSport and, by proxy, Breaking Data.
So what’s next?
As per the latest available numbers, Breaking Data generated $1.08 million revenues for the twelve months to January 31, 2017. At that time, however, the GiveMeSport acquisition was less than one month old and the outlet’s advertising revenues were not included in the statement. As such, the next major catalyst for this stock is the reporting of financials (presumably, first quarter, but management hasn’t confirmed when it will start to include GiveMeSport in its audited numbers) that offer insight into just how much of a difference the acquisition makes to Breaking Data’s top and bottom lines.
Beyond that, the outcome of a recently announced marketing strategy that sees the company team up with NFL UK to develop an original content series themed around attempts at Guinness World Records is very much on the catalyst radar.
If this collaboration materializes as expected, it could expand the company’s reach to a television audience and – in turn – could dramatically increase its potential to command premium rates from advertisers looking to gain exposure to its userbase.
GWPH Long Term Major Player in Medical Cannabis (NASDAQ:GWPH)
Intro & History:
GWPH, GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH) is a British biopharmaceutical company known for its multiple sclerosis treatment product Sativex, and Epidiolex (cannabidiol) which is their lead development drug nearing market introduction to treat a rare form of childhood-onset epilepsy which currently has few, if any, real treatment options. Sativex was the first natural cannabis plant derivative to gain market approval in any country. Founded in 1998 and based in Salisbury, UK GWPH is headed by Geoffrey W. Guy and Brian Whittle. GWPH calls themselves the “global leader in developing cannabinoid-based medicines.” We think that the epilepsy market is a sweet spot for cannabinoids because of relaxing medical marijuana regulations and the increasing prevalence of various types of epilepsy, all over the world.
Recent News & Developments:
On May 24th of this year, GWPH through its subsidiary Greenwich Biosciences published a “groundbreaking” study of Epidiolex in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. This corresponded with a slight surge in stock price, but came nowhere near historical highs. In any case, the current Phase III study has received ample positive attention not only in the NEJoM but from physicians specializing in conditions it is designed to treat at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting on April 25 of this year.
This is starting to sound repetitive, but we have to say again that with relaxation of regulations at the state level, the federal government will eventually have to follow suit. So far that has remained elusive, especially with notorious drug warrior Jeff Sessions, the current U.S. Attorney General pressing Congress for the repeal of the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment which prevents the federal government from prosecuting (or persecuting) marijuana based businesses that are in compliance with their state and local laws.
In some good news to counter the bad, Cory Booker, a liberal Democrat from New Jersey; Kirsten Gillibrand, a more moderate Democrat from New York; and Rand Paul, a libertarian leaning Republican from Kentucky introduced the CARERS Act which directly benefits firms like GW Pharmaceuticals by officially codifying Obama era policies whereby the feds largely ignored medical marijuana based businesses, and expanding opportunities for medical and scientific research into therapeutic uses for cannabinoids through a combination of banking, veterans access, and perhaps most importantly rescheduling marijuana away from the Schedule I designation which it shares with Heroin and LSD, making it very cumbersome to perform research. Finally, this act would completely remove cannabidiol (CBD), GWPH’s bread and butter so to speak, from federal drug schedules.
GWPH’s pipeline includes CBDV (GWP42006) for epilepsy and autism spectrum disorders and a host of other similarly cannabis-derived compounds for conditions including a form of neonatal encephalopathy, glioma, schizophrenia and complications stemming from multiple sclerosis. There are numerous clinical trial actions underway, viewable at the Clinicaltrials.gov website here.
Market Data & Performance:
Currently at $103.49 with a Market Cap of $2.61B. This is down from their all-time high of $132.73 in September of 2016 that coincided with the end of that fiscal quarter, the impending filing for FDA approval of Epidiolex (which still has yet to occur), and a resulting sharp spike of $50 in share price from August 1 to September 1, 2016. Since that time performance has been mostly negative, but could be looking up for Q3 2017.
Various positive indicators came out of the Q2 2017 call in early May. These included improving assets to liabilities and assets to inventory ratios. They’ve budgeted a significant $130M-$150M to spend for the next 12 month period, largely on operations, research and market penetration. They also discussed high profile Phase III research and development news regarding Epidiolex – which may finally be nearing FDA approval, several management changes including the hire of Scott Giacobello as their new CFO and plans to become a U.S. domestic NASDAQ registrant reporting under U.S. GAAP (and in U.S. dollars) in the near future, among other items.
Conclusion & Looking Ahead:
Based on current and historical performance, as well as positioning of current and future drug releases, GWPH is probably a bit undervalued. Sales of legal cannabis and marijuana in both the recreational and medical sectors are expected to rise by ~30% in 2017, ~45% in 2018, and reach $17 billion (or more) in 2021, per the “Marijuana Business Factbook 2017”. Numerous cannabis related stocks have already surpassed 2X or 3X on their value at introduction/IPO and GW is sitting at a pretty low point right now.
We think you are capable of doing the math here. While I cannot make any specific recommendations on this stock, you will be well served to short list a group of marijuana based stocks and follow them closely in the coming months and years. This should be one of them – keep an eye on upcoming clinical trials because the FDA and EMA processes to bring new drugs to market is long and fraught with peril and the floor can drop out at any time as a result. You should also be wary of a “green rush” bubble propping up marijuana based stocks but also understand that the inherent safety of cannabinoid products and derivatives, along with the aforementioned relaxed federal medical cannabis regulatory environment, do provide some insulation from sudden stock crashes resulting from suits or government “imminent public safety” action.
Finally, the status quo in Washington D.C. could be good for firms with existing research capabilities and market penetration like GW. Namely, recreational use is facing a steep climb toward federal legality, but numerous pieces of legislation currently making their way through Congress with the aim of easing restrictions on all aspects of the medical marijuana business.
ABBV AbbVie Inc Continues To Impress (NYSE:ABBV)
Intro & History on ABBV (NYSE:ABBV) :
In the biotech and medical marijuana arena, we think that ABBV AbbVie Inc. (NYSE ABBV) is an interesting and well known stock to keep an eye on. ABBV is a pharmaceutical development, discovery, manufacturing and sales firm based in Illinois near Chicago, and traded on NYSE and they are, according to Wikipedia, the world’s eighth-largest independent biotech company by market cap. AbbVie falls squarely into the “Big Pharma” category. From their own company literature they are:
“…a global, research-driven biopharmaceutical company committed to developing innovative advanced therapies for some of the world’s most complex and critical conditions. The company’s mission is to use its expertise, dedicated people and unique approach to innovation to markedly improve treatments across four primary therapeutic areas: immunology, oncology, virology and neuroscience. In more than 75 countries, AbbVie employees are working every day to advance health solutions for people around the world.”
AbbVie originated in 2013 when Abbott Laboratories decided to separate into two separately traded companies. Abbott is now focused only on medical devices, equipment and nutrition products whereas AbbVie is strictly in the pharmaceutical research and manufacturing business.
They manufacture several products, which in this day and age of ubiquitous pharma adverts, can arguably be called household names. The two most prominent of which – for our purposes anyway – are Humira and Marinol. Humira – This immunosuppressive drug accounts for over 60% of AbbVie’s revenue and is used to treat Crohn’s disease and happens to be the highest grossing drug *in the world*, with over 15% growth in the past year alone. There are so-called “patent cliff” concerns looming, but I’ll address those momentarily. Marinol – This marijuana derivative, also known as Dronabinol, is marketed to chemotherapy, AIDS and other patients dealing with nausea, vomiting and suppressed appetite resulting from a pathology or treatment regimen. It is currently regulated as a Schedule III substance under the Controlled Substance Act, differing markedly from marijuana which sits at Schedule I and carries unreasonably harsh criminal penalties in many places in the United States and abroad. Medicinal cannabis/marijuana is currently approved in over half of the United States.
Recent News & Developments:
ABBV currently has an alphabet soup of promising experimental drugs in the hopper. The one drawing the most publicity is Upadictinib (formerly research chemical ABT-494) which recently significantly outperformed a placebo in clinical trials for rheumatoid arthritis. The FDA recently rejected Baricitinib (developed and submitted by Eli Lilly and Incyte) thereby seriously limiting competition for Upadictinib. Now all AbbVie has got to do is find a catchier name for Ubpadictnib it and send out the sales force. I kid, of course; if history is any indication, it could be named “Thistuffakillyatinib” and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference – so long as it continues to work without any previously unforeseen large scale side effects and the accompanying class actions cropping up.
The one big question mark at this point; and one which doesn’t have too many informed investors and biotech experts worried given the timeframe, is the expiration of Humira’s patent in 2022 and the introduction of competing drugs. Since ABBV derives so much of their current income from this product, it is of course incumbent on them to develop replacement revenue drivers between now and then. Again, most analysts with whom I am familiar are bullish on the likelihood that this will indeed happen.
Market Data & Performance:
During the last one-year period this Large Cap stock has fluctuated between $55.06 (low) and $73.67 (high) with an average volume of 5,560,234, a current volume of over 9,000,000 and higher than average yield. The characteristic zigzag graph indicates rallies and reactions over the past five years, but the stock has trended generally upward in every year for which data is available since 2012. To further belabor the point, almost every new peak or trough has been higher than the preceding peak or trough through time, and the line-of-best-fit has a definitively positive slope. ABBV has used about 58% of free cash flow to cover their past four quarterly payments which isn’t ideal, but far from abnormal. Price closed at $73.18 on June 22, 2017 and is currently trending down, but only by about 1% on June 23. Other mostly current stats are as follows:
- Market Cap: 469B
- PE Ratio: 18.97
- EPS: 3.86
- 6% yield
The company released its first quarter 2017 financial results and outlook at the end of April and it contained the following statement:
AbbVie is confirming its GAAP diluted EPS guidance for the full-year 2017 of $4.55 to $4.65. AbbVie expects to deliver adjusted diluted EPS for the full-year 2017 of $5.44 to $5.54, representing growth of 13.9 percent at the mid-point. The company’s 2017 adjusted diluted EPS guidance excludes $0.89 per share of intangible asset amortization expense and other specified items.
Paying down of the relatively high debt load has not, and looks to continue to not be a priority, which could mean that the C-suite is confident in the likelihood of continued future growth.
Looking Ahead:
To those of you with a particular interest in the cannabis market sector, AbbVie has had Marinol since 1985 and has over 30 years of research into cannabinoid compounds. Several experts have speculated that one path away from ABBV disproportionately heavy reliance on Humira and the dangers associated with the impending collapse of its veritable monopoly, would be in medical marijuana derivatives – the market for which is in the process of moving from $5 Billion in 2015, to over $20 Billion by 2020.
Conclusion:
Humira is facing existential competition, but not anytime soon. Toward weaning themselves from Humira, ABBV acquired rights to ½ of sales of Imbruvica, a cancer drug, in 2015 and it is joined in their oncology drug portfolio by Venclexta another novel cancer treatment drug. There are, again, many more products in the research phase.
Even if there is an overall market correction in biotech, it would affect all such stocks equally and probably hit the smaller companies harder – and given the increasingly positive reception to relaxed medical (and recreational) marijuana laws and the tax revenues that decriminalization and legalization would bestow at the state and national levels, it would behoove AbbVie to seriously consider this market vertical for continued research, development, and acquisitions. They have the benefit of their extensive previous research and the notion that the DEA simply has to be trending toward totally re-scheduling marijuana (and its derivatives); and we feel like they can afford to be; actually – they NEED to be very aggressive in pursuing innovations in this market.
Further, given Humira’s continuing status as the #1 revenue grossing drug on the planet, the next 3 or so years look promising as a mid-term investment – depending on how proactive AbbVie can be in staking out aforementioned (or currently unannounced) new market footprint(s). Overall, in our opinion, the lower AbbVie trends toward the $60-65 threshold, the better the mid-to-long term bargain for investors and the more closely it should be followed.