KUB.V has its highest close in over 2 years

I first wrote about Cub Energy (KUB.V or TPNEF) back on October 31st 2016 when the price was sitting at a whopping 2 cents.

An intriguing penny play - KUB.V - Ukranian Oil and Gas

I had established a position in KUB.V at 2.5 cents (I almost never get the bottom) so I'm obviously very happy.  If I were to sell for the current closing price of 7.5 cents that would represent a tripling of my investment which isn't bad for just over three months.  

I know I post continually how nobody ever goes broke by taking profits, however I'm planning on holding because I genuinely believe there is potential for significantly higher prices in the weeks and months to come.  If you've followed my posts on RMHB here you'll see that I wasn't shy about taking a 50% profit on that play, but I believe KUB.V is different.  (RMHB LINK - check the comments)

Here is a 3 month chart that shows how KUB.V has performed since I first wrote about it back at the end of October:

Taking that chart in isolation, selling now might seem like a wise course of action.  But taking a longer view I see potential for substantially higher prices.  Of course please take note that as a current shareholder, my thoughts and opinions are also INCREDIBLY skewed....there is something called "confirmation bias" and I can be as prone to it as anyone.  

One quick note on the 3 month chart and taking note of stochastics (the indicator at the very top), they show KUB being in an overbought position, so a near term pullback would not shock me.

Its when looking at the 4 year chart, that's where I see the potential for much higher prices....at least in the area of 20 to 25 cents....roughly three times where they are now and about 10 times higher from where I initiated my position.

You have to go back to 2013 and early 2014 to find KUB trading up around that 20 to 25 cent area. So what makes me think it can get back there?

Often with penny stocks you will see the PPS fall in tandem with massive dilution, I've seen penny stocks with 1+ billion shares issued.  KUB.V on the other hand had 311.7 million shares issued at the end of 2013, and now about four years later there are 312 million shares listed as issued as per stockwatch.  

You can verify those numbers by checking the company's filings on SEDAR and I encourage anyone considering an investment in KUB to do so.  

So obviously the drop in value from 20+ cents to about 2 pennies isn't attributable to the company printing shares and dumping them into the market.  What was it?  Those who don't keep up on world politics might have missed the situation which cropped up in 2014 between Russia and Ukraine over a little parcel of land called the Crimean Peninsula.  

Here's a Wikipedia article on it:  Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014 - present)

Looking at the above 4 year chart its hard not to draw a cause and effect relationship between this conflict and KUB.V 's plummeting share price.

Of course all that is in the past, and KUB has already climbed well off those 2 cent lows.  So why do I think it can keep climbing back to the valuation it had before the Russian intervention.

Back in November the company released its third quarter financial and operational results, Included in those numbers was the fact that the company's working capital and cash position were the best they had been in over two years.  Also noted was the reduction in royalty rates for natural gas in Ukraine from 55% to 29%. 

Here's a link to the PR or check the filings on SEDAR:  

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cub-energy-inc-announces-q3-210507800.html

Frequent readers of this miserable and pathetic little blog know that I like to keep an eye out for what I consider to be the unholy trinity of the market game.  In order those three things are Promotion, News and Hype.  With Cub Energy I have found zero promotion going on, if anyone knows of any please leave a comment because I have come up completely dry.

In terms of News there isn't much either.  Aside from the required quarterly and annual results or other material information news is pretty scant.  Cub Energy doesn't look like one of those companies that goes to investor roadshows, issuing PRs every other day about any little tidbit they think might drive interest to the stock.   

Their most recent PR was on Dec. 28th of 2016 announcing a 20 year production license and increased acreage: 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cub-energy-inc-announces-20-141500227.html

Back when I first wrote about KUB in October of last year I offered up the opinion that my take on the chart was that it showed signs of accumulation.  The reason I thought, and the reason I still think, KUB was undergoing accumulation is because I believe I'm not the only one who sees the PPS returning to the levels it was at back in 2013, and possibly even higher.

Please note, while I am very bullish there are still risks.  The political situation could deteriorate again, if it does I would expect KUB.V to drop in value.  Penny stocks are incredibly risky and not suitable for everyone.  I would never suggest investing a single dime in KUB or any other penny stock unless you can afford to lose some, and possibly even all of your investment.  

Comments are always welcomed, but they are moderated and will not be published if they contain profanity.  And no spam allowed either, if you want to promote your pills to increase the size of the male organ, then do it somewhere else.  At my age and with three kids that's not a concern, you'd have to go back to the 1970s to get me interested in anything like penis enlargement.  

Emblem Corp - Over or undervalued? (EMC.V - EMMBF)

That's the central question for any stock isn't it?  Is it under or overvalued.  It doesn't matter whether its an OTC stock trading for a single penny, or a NYSE listed company trading for $100 or more.  

If you get it right you can make money, get it wrong and you lose.  And you can make money both ways.  If you think a stock is under priced you can go long, or if you think the price is too high you can borrow shares and dump them back into the market going short.  

I've written many times on this blog that trying to assign a value to a speculative stock is pretty much a mug's game.  There are stocks out there right now that have been around 20 years or more that have histories of nothing but failure, but their market caps are in the hundreds of millions, sometimes billions. How can that be?  Simple, there are more people buying than there are selling.

Stocks don't trade on fundamentals, they trade on sentiment.  

Emblem is now trading around $4.20 CDN or $3.20 USD.  That is the result of the levels of buy side interest and sell side supply to date.  Determining whether or not the PPS will rise or fall going forward will depend on how many buyers and sellers there are in the days, weeks and months ahead.

I very much like the chances for Emblem to increase in value from current levels, however as a shareholder in the company my opinions should be considered as extremely biased.  Of course I will explain my reasons for being bullish.

Emblem stormed onto the market with trading starting on December 12th 2016.  Activity that first day was robust to say the least, with over 7.3 million shares trading hands on the TSX venture exchange. While market commentators had anticipated an opening PPS of around $1.50 to $2.00 CDN the stock opened at $2.99, double the low end projection.  The PPS closed at $3.30 that first day, and traded as high as $3.98.  There was no trading on the US side as the OTC listing didn't come until later.

Why was there so much interest in Emblem?

It goes almost without saying that Cannabis stocks have been on fire.  But beyond the overall spotlight in the wider marijuana sector, Emblem had already attracted a lot of attention even before being a public company.  There were write ups in Canada's national newspaper The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post did a piece, even the BBC had an article about Emblem.  

If you missed it here's a sampling of some of those early articles.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/leadership-behind-canadian-medical-marijuana-company-has-an-oxycontin-past/article33200287/

http://www.cantechletter.com/2016/12/emblem-cannabis-corp-will-soon-one-canadas-leading-producers-says-pi/

http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/emblem-cannabis-to-be-biggest-cannabis-ipo-of-2016/8445

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/madaline-zanni/licensed-cannabis-producer-canada_b_12365080.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38083737

That's a lot of attention before even one share had traded hands in the public markets.  I myself was alerted to Emblem's IPO by a newsletter service from a promotional outfit called Microcapresearch.  

No wonder demand and volume were so high on day one.  I had set aside funds specifically for EMC, but seeing it open around double the price I was expecting I decided to only invest one third of the money I'd earmarked.  I saw the potential for it to go either way, up or down.  I wanted a position if it kept climbing, but I also wanted some money available if the price moved lower.

As it turned out the PPS moved markedly lower.  Over the first four days of trading on the Venture Exchange short sellers borrowed almost half a million shares and dumped them back into the market. That kind of activity is bound to have a negative impact on the price, and it did.  By the 19th of December the PPS got as low as $2.52 and I was able to add to my position at $2.80 and lower my cost average substantially.

So now the PPS sits over $4 Canadian and the trading has cooled off significantly.  After that first day with over 7.3 million trading the volumes have only topped one million three times.  The last time volume crested the million mark on the Canadian side was on the first day of trading in 2017, January 3rd when a little over 1.1 million shares were bought and sold.  On the U.S. OTC side volumes are even lighter, there hasn't even been a day of 100K trading in calendar 2017 for EMMBF.

Short sellers took their foot off the gas pedal it seems.  After borrowing and dumping 483,200 shares in the first four days of trading up to December 15th 2016, the number actually dropped to 456,000 up to December 31st 2016.  During the first four days of trading the PPS never once dipped below $3 so I think its reasonable to expect that there are some angry bears out there right now.

Short sellers are not stupid, but that doesn't mean they're always right either.  Seeing short selling cool off is a positive sign in my opinion.  If bears had continued raiding the stock and dumping shares it obviously would have impacted the price by making more shares available for sale.  I strongly suspect that there are a lot of eyes on Emblem right now, with many thinking (or hoping) that the PPS will give back some and allow them to buy in cheaper.

Going forward I see the potential for Emblem to attract even more attention.  I haven't seen any promotional outfits hyping the company since that first email I received from Microcapresearch.  But with so much free publicity I don't think the company needs to be doing much to attract attention.

Reddit users may already be aware of a Cannabis Conference coming up at the end of January in British Columbia.  Here's a link to the post on that site:

https://www.reddit.com/r/weedstocks/comments/5m3u59/canaccord_genuity_cannabis_conference_jan_26/?st=ixq972n4&sh=cf90487f

EMC has been able to sustain a price of $4+ CDN on much lighter volume than was experienced when trading first started.  With the above noted conference, in which Emblem's Stewart is named as a keynote speaker, and with Canada due to outline the path forward to the legalization of recreational weed in April I see the potential for this level of demand to at least be sustained with a distinct possibility of it even increasing.

The one caveat I will toss out there is the possibility of a bear raid.  Short sellers could attack Emblem, borrowing more shares and dumping them into the market as they did during the first four days.  It is this possibility that has kept me from investing the final 3rd of the money I'd set aside for Emblem.  If I sense a bear attack aimed at taking the price down I fully intend to take advantage the same way I did with my second buy.

Good luck all....please read the disclaimer at the very bottom of this site and feel free to comment, just no profanity please.  

Emblem Corp - Short interest hits almost 500,000 (EMC.V / EMMBF)

EMC has only been trading for seven calendar days, and the updated figure for short interest is only current up to December 15th 2016, so it includes just four days of trading.  The number current to that date was 483,200 and now with three more days of trading in the books it may very well be higher, and in point of fact I expect that it is higher.  

Regular readers of this miserable and pathetic little blog (I think I might be up to 4 now) know I don't give fundamental data a lot of weight, figuring it to be already 'priced in' to a stock's valuation. The reason is because most fundamental data is typically weeks, and often months old. Short interest on the other hand is much more recent, in this case its only 3 days old.  

Short interest is the one fundamental metric I follow closely because it gets right to the nuts and bolts of the market.  A stock price is determined by the laws of supply and demand, and short sellers artificially increase the available supply by borrowing shares from shareholders and then re-selling them into the market.    

One point I wish to make abundantly clear, short selling is legitimate market activity and I don't view bears as evil or anything of that sort.  Market players can look at a stock and reach the conclusion that, in their opinion, the stock is overvalued.  Expecting the price to fall they can borrow shares from the brokerages of shareholders who have margin accounts and sell them.  The goal is to buy the shares back lower, thus pocketing the difference and booking a gain.  

Longs of course do the opposite, when an investor reaches the determination, in their opinion, that a stock has potential to rise in value, then he or she can purchase shares in the hopes of selling them at some later date for a higher price than what was paid.

Pretty basic stuff.

Naturally it comes down to how many shares are being bought versus how many are being made available for sale, that's what determines the direction of the share price.  And both bulls and bears have the ability to influence the market.  When bulls storm in and buy, if they overwhelm the amount of shares available, then the price rises.  Conversely if bears are making more shares available than buyers are looking to purchase, then the price falls.

Emblem started trading on December 12th, and while market commentators were expecting it to open around $1.50 to $2 per share, instead the level of buy side interest sent the PPS up as high as $3.98 that first day on volume of over 7.3 million shares trading.

Naturally some felt that valuation was inflated, and as should be expected some obviously decided to try and profit by going short.  In just 4 days of trading almost half a million shares were borrowed and sold into the market, and based on the trading its reasonable to expect that most (if not all) of the borrowed shares were sold for more than $3 per.

Now comes the fun part.

As things currently stand short players are sitting on paper gains.  The current PPS is $2.77 and if we assume (pulling a number out of my nether regions) that shorts sold at an average of $3.27 to keep the math easy and rounding up to 500,000 as the short figure....that's a paper gain of $250K.

Not too shabby.

But here's the rub.  In order to turn those paper gains into capital gains short sellers need share holders willing to sell for $2.77 in order for them to cover.  Its the same as a long buying 500,000 of a stock at $2.77 and watching it climb to $3.27.  The long in this case has a paper gain of $250K but he can only turn it into a capital gain if he is able to find buyers willing to pay the higher price.  

Isn't the market fun?

Bears have done well, on paper, but if buying back on the cover causes the PPS to climb its possible that paper gains could turn into paper losses.  Its the same as a long buying a stock at $2.77 and then trying to sell at $3.27, if that selling leads to too much supply and a falling PPS then paper gains could turn into losses.

The thing to understand is that stocks trade on sentiment.  This is important so I'm going to repeat it, stocks trade on sentiment.  A lot of novice retail investors think that there is some magical formula or slide rule to determine whether a stock is under or overvalued.  Good luck with that.  

A lot of investors looked at a company like Tesla and saw its shares trading for $30 or $40 in 2012 and thought it was grossly overvalued.  After all the company was new and had never made a dime in profit, Tesla was bleeding cash to the tune of hundreds of millions per year.  On top of that they were issuing SEC filings saying that their previous filings for earlier years could not be relied upon because of accounting errors.  

Sounds like a short sellers wet dream doesn't it?  Hundreds of millions in losses, dilution on top of dilution, accounting irregularities.  It would be hard to argue with someone presenting the bear case on Tesla back in 2012.  But those fundamental negatives were trumped by bullish sentiment and TSLA took off trading for $100, $200 almost $300 per share in subsequent years.  And now TSLA has finally started to report profits.  Will those profits be enough to sustain the current $200 or so PPS?   That's up to the market to decide, and the primary factor will be sentiment.

But let's get back to Emblem Corp.  Right now its worth $2.77 CDN.  Is that overvalued or undervalued?  

That will depend on market sentiment going forward.  I took out a small long position on the first day of trading, because I saw (and still see) the potential for EMC to attract a lot of buy side interest. I only invested about one third of the capital I had set aside for Emblem however, because I could see it going either way after its incredibly strong opening.  

So far it has moved down from that opening day euphoria, which isn't a shock, but I also saw the potential for increased buy side interest from media mentions and the OTCBB listing, but as of yet that hasn't panned out.  With that being said I am not shying away from my $7 target by April when the Government of Canada is set to announce how its proceeding with the legalization of weed in this country.

Some interesting news has come out as well recently, with the company now authorized to produce Cannabis oils.  Oils derived from Cannabis are said to have a number of positive health benefits, and are an ingredient in some new energy drinks.  I'm invested in one such company and have written about Rocky Mountain High Brand 'Hemp Infused' drinks on here a couple times after opening a position in RMHB at .031 cents USD on the OTCQB.

http://www.avoidthebag.com/2016/10/hemp-infused-beverages-intriguing-idea.html

I am very bullish on EMC as a long term investment, given the management team and the expanding market.  Short term though anything can happen.  If bears continue borrowing shares and selling them the PPS could continue dropping.  

For those concerned with their shares being loaned out there are some things you can do, although personally I don't think it matters much because in my opinion there will still be plenty of shares available in margin accounts.  But shares held in registered accounts for TFSAs and RSPs, those shares are not available to short players.  Additionally putting a sell order in means they can't be loaned out either, although that's something you need to keep an eye on if your intention is to hold for the long term as your PPS could be hit if the stock starts to climb.

Anyway that's enough for now.  Good luck and realize that because of my long position my views are obviously biased.  Verify all information, while I try to ensure the accuracy of what I share I can make no assurances, mistakes can happen.

Cheers

Ziopharm - Has Kirk lost his magic touch?

Its something you see all the time in professional sports, a player with a successful history hits the free agent market and gets a huge contract.  Teams sometimes overpay, and then get stuck with a grossly overpaid player who isn't performing.  Its a lousy situation but it happens, and the team that overpays is stuck, often unable to trade the player unless they're practically willing to give him away and pay a portion of his salary.

It happens in the stock market too.  Many Ziopharm investors were thrilled with the involvement of renowned biotech Guru RJ Kirk.  Here was a guy who had orchestrated some blockbuster deals with companies like Scios and New River.  Kirk was a big home run hitter in other words, and when Ziopharm announced it was partnering with the MD Anderson Cancer Centre the bidding on shares of ZIOP went through the roof.  

After trading down around $2 in 2014, the PPS climbed up near $15 in 2015 with the Anderson deal providing the wind in the sails.  Now of course ZIOP is down to somewhere around $6 to $7 and running out of cash with the prospect of more dilution within the next 12 months.  

RJ Kirk is also the Senior Marketing Director and CEO of Third Security, an investment firm he started in 1999.  In viewing the biotech and science centred holdings of Third Security its apparent Ziopharm isn't the only one that has not been performing as well as investors were probably hoping.

http://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/institutional-portfolio/third-security-llc-874451

1. XON up near $70 in 2015, now its trading under $30   
2. HALO up around $25 in 2015 now under $12
3. FCSC over $7 last year now less than $1
4. SYN briefly over $4 in 2015 now less than $1
5. OGEN same as SYN
6. HSGX started 2015 around $12 and is now under $2
7. TBIO got up to $3 and even $4 in 2015, now around 20 odd pennies.  

That's just a sampling of course.  It perhaps goes to show the wisdom of that oft repeated bromide about past performance being no guarantee of future success.  Its not just in pro sports that players lose their touch.  

But in fairness just because a number of stocks have under performed in 2016, that doesn't mean they can't turn it around in 2017 and beyond, in fact I'd expect at least one or two of those beaten down stocks listed above to rebound.  

Who knows, Ziopharm could be one of them.  In my opinion a lot will depend on their ability to raise money yet again, and if it involves diluting current shareholders, then to what degree.

Good luck

Peregrine Pharmaceuticals (PPHM) January effect candidate?

I've written before about investors falling in love with their stocks.  That doesn't just go for the winners, people fall in love with those that have lost them money too.

Nobody wins them all, I don't care how good you are.  Anyone who believes someone who says they never pick a losing stock, they probably believed Donald Trump's promises about locking up Hillary Clinton and draining the swamp.

Sometimes the loss is blamed on manipulation, but whatever the reason investors have often read all the SEC filings, every PR, all the Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha articles. Message boards have been scoured looking for that golden piece of bullish information that preaches to the converted longs.

But as the year comes to a close, sometimes you have to cut bait and let go, especially if you have gains with other stocks.  Capital losses have value because they can be used to offset gains that have been booked on other stocks.

Still, letting go is hard, and that's where the January effect comes in.

A lot of investors will hold on until late in the year, before finally hitting the sell button in December and booking the capital loss.  But that doesn't mean they stop paying attention to the stock they sold, its still watched closely.  And then after 30 days many will buy back in.  That 30 day period is important because buying back in after less than 30 days means you lose the capital loss for tax purposes.

The result of buyers coming back into a stock is frequently a bounce in the share price.  And sometimes it starts in late December as some who never held a position buy in looking to play the January effect with a beaten down stock.

Fundamentals aside stocks trade based on supply and demand more than anything else.  Obviously the best time to be buying any commodity is when demand is low, and the best time to be selling is when buyers are in abundance.  If many of those who sold for a tax loss storm back into a stock in January, that represents a good time to sell, at a time of heightened demand.

So what makes PPHM a good candidate for the January effect in my opinion?  Let's start with the a look at the chart:

The share price for PPHM cratered in late February 2016 with the announcement the company was halting it's phase III trial of Bavituximab, causing the PPS to fall from over $1.00 to 30 odd cents. For the remainder of the year the stock has been trading in and around 30 to 40 cents with some short lived spikes above 50 pennies.

Obviously anyone who'd bought shares before the trial halt would be sitting on a paper loss, and selling would allow investors to book capital losses to be used as an offset against capital gains.  But now the question is:  Why would anyone want to buy back in?

I see two reasons, the fist being Avid Bioservices, Peregrine's wholly owned subsidiary.  Their contract provider of bio-manufacturing services (as well as providing services for their own development stage drugs)  just reported 2nd quarter revenues of $23.4 million with a reported backlog of $73 million.  According to recent news, with Avid's continued revenue growth, overall profitability is targeted within the next 18 months.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/peregrine-pharmaceuticals-reports-financial-results-210500133.html

And the second reason is also outlined in the above linked PR on the company's financial results. Their drug candidate Bavituximab, while it failed the futility analysis in the company's phase III trial, post hoc analysis of the results may lead to the company finding alternative targets and/or combinations.  

Finally I will bring up short interest, because I consider a critical point of research and DD.  Back in February, before announcing the phase III futility test failure, short interest was over 11.4 million.  As recently as June the number of shares borrowed and sold was still over 9.4 million.  Subsequent to June though the number of shorted shares dropped substantially with the most recent update showing 646,318 shares short current up to November 30th 2016.  

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/pphm/short-interest

Props to short players who booked some solid gains by selling high and buying back low on the cover.  Now with less than 1% of the float short as of the most recent update, I don't see much of a risk/reward play for short players.  Shorting a stock trading for 30 to 40 cents is fraught with risks, especially if the company achieves profitability and/or success with bavituximab.  

We shall see if PPHM does benefit from the January effect.  If it does, then the safest thing to do in my view is to book profits.  As I write in just about every entry on this blog, "nobody ever goes broke taking profits".  I do think there is a potential for PPHM to deliver over the longer term, but as with any stock, there are risks.  If PPHM does bounce in January and then keeps going, those who sold for the January effect could always cry into the money they made.

As always, not a recommendation, just my thoughts and opinions.  Comments are welcome, just no profanity please.  

Good luck

Worried about rising interest rates? Don't be.....

Interest rates affect everyone, whether you're a borrower or a saver.  For borrowers rising rates mean higher carrying costs on debt, for savers it means higher income on vehicles like savings accounts and GICs. 

But in terms of the stock markets there is quite often a disconnect, with retail investors bullish when rates go down and bearish when they rise.  There is some logic to that thinking, because when rates go up so do things like the cost of buying on margin.  And when rates go down, those using leverage to purchase stocks see those costs drop.

But rising rates should be cause for bullish excitement, while falling rates should spark concern.

Quite simply central banks raise rates when the longer term outlook for the economy as a whole is good, and they lower rates when there are fears of recession, or when a recession as already taken hold.  What good are cheap borrowing costs when there are less people working and less money circulating in the economy? Conversely, who cares if the cost of borrowing is more expensive if that means there will be more money circulating as employment levels rise along with those working getting increased wages.

For younger readers though, those who have come of age in the last 10 years or so, rising interest rates might come as something of a shock.  This was only the second rate increase in the past year, and it signals that we're coming out of the emergency low interest rate environment that was spawned by the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2007/2008.  

There are a generation of borrowers who think a fixed mortgage rate of under 3% is normal.  When I sat down with my bank a couple years back to negotiate a mortgage I had a different term, "stupid cheap".  My wife was thinking of shaving a few tenths off by going variable, and maybe buying the rate down some.  But at well below 3% I was more than happy, being able to remember rates much higher, like 5, 6 and 7.....there were even crazier rates back in the early 90s, but I wasn't taking out mortgages back then.

Rising rates will cause some problems, there are some people who are addicted to cheap debt, and they're going to be in for some severe pain if the US Federal Reserve sticks to its guidance of another 3 rate increases next year.  

But for the overall economy in general, and stock markets in particular, this is a very good thing.  

Aurora Solar (ACU.V) explodes higher on LG Electronics news

Many commentators write about the importance of timing the market.  But sometimes its not so much about timing, but rather of "time in".  I first wrote about ACU.V back on July 18th of this year, just shy of five full months ago.  At that time ACU was trading around 15 cents:

The lure of green energy - Aurora Solar Tech (ACU.V)

In that posting I expressed a bullish opinion that was based on a near total absence of Promotion, News, and Hype.  On top of that I really liked the way the chart was setting up.  I saw a base pattern in the 14 to 15 cent range and had started a position at 15 cents and speculated that the stock might be undergoing smart money accumulation, that is to say big market players buying low while things were depressed and quiet.

Not long after I wrote that blog posting, the PPS fell to less than 10 cents, so much for timing.  I did take advantage of that drop and added the exact same dollar amount as I had bought at 15 cents, thus lowering my cost average to 12.5 cents, but at 9 or 10 cents I was still underwater.  

In Sept/Oct/Nov the PPS did recover, getting back up around 15 cents before settling in and around 13 pennies.  That is until December 13th when the company released news about an order from LG electronics.  

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/aurora-solar-technologies-announces-volume-130000686.html

The two sentences of news contained in that release seems to have been the cause for an explosion in both the PPS as well as volumes.  ACU traded more than 8 million shares over the last two days and the PPS climbed from 13 to 19 cents after reaching an interday peak of 21.5 cents.  

Regular readers know my favorite saying, nobody has ever gone broke taking profits.  I myself sold 10% of my holdings today at 20 cents, 60% gains are nothing to sneeze at.  But I think there is potential for even more upside here.  With that being said, ACU has moved up in a fast and furious manner, so it would not be unreasonable to expect a pullback.

Do take note of the 50 and 200 day moving averages (simple), the 50 is taking dead aim at crossing over the 200, which is called a Golden Cross among devotees of Technical Analysis.  A Golden Cross can be seen as a potential harbinger of a clear sky break out to a new and higher trading range. Assuming ACU.V does break out even higher I think it is reasonable to expect resistance in the 30 to 35 cent range where the PPS traded for a long time over the past several years.

As noted in a blog posting I just did on short interest on December 5th just past, ACU.V only had 2,000 shares sold short current up to November 30th.  However back in August that number did shoot up over 100K, which in my opinion was quite likely an effort to "shake the tree".  For those unfamiliar, shaking the tree involves shorting a stock in an effort to shake free shares from overly nervous and price sensitive retail shareholders.

If it happened before it can happen again.

Do note my opinions are biased as I am a shareholder and ACU does represent a highly speculative stock, that was true at 10 cents, at 15 cents and is equally true at 19 or 20 cents.

Good luck