David Dodds said:
Otis said:
PRGN and DRYS rockets out of the gate, again.
I was tracking this sector all year waiting for this timeframe. Many people believe that you will see the economy first moving in this sector. And that makes sense. If Dry goods like iron ore are moving then the global economy must be improving. Last year the BDI hit it's peak in May/June timeframe. Look at the curves from a longview (1 year timeframe) on all of these companies. They are all starting to look like parabolas heading back up. We have had months of head fakes, reverses, etc. I think Paragon has positioned themselves brilliantly here in this sector too. They cut their dividend to stockpile cash. They got authority to raise cash by adding 10M shares. They gave themselves the ability to buy back shares this year as well (up to $10M worth). They restructured their debt so it's just 10-15 Million owed per quarter. They have 98% of their ship time already locked down for this year at good prices. And now with the BDI and stock price moving up, they will soon have a ridiculous cash horde on their books to get more ships and to fill out 2010 (currently at 55% sold).This is an outstanding run company that really gets it. It's PE even after this "run up" is under 2.0 (Not really true because they are likely diluting a lot of shares as we speak, but their counterparts in this industry have PEs around 6-7). This is a rocketship folks and I think it's just getting underway. If you believe the global economy is getting out of this mess like I do, you want to be in some of the Dry Shippers. They are going to be the market leaders for the next months.
David,Is it possible PRGN is buying shares now, thus the increase over the last few days?
Yes they are both diluting and buying shares right now (actually might have stopped diluting for now). When the next earnings report comes out, you are going to see that they raised $15 Million and shockingly also own a TON more of their own stock at 3.40-3.70. With the extra cash and great earnings, this thing vaults to $5-$6 where they dilute the rest of the shares. I also think somehow JPMorgan is involved in this too.My conspiracy goes like this:1. PRGN restructures debt last quarter and slashes dividend. The market responds pushing PRGN higher initially (stock jumped over $4 initially before crashing).2. With the stock high, PRGN starts diluting shares trying to get as many as 10 million new shares quickly into the marketplace.3. This holds back the stock and it lags significantly the other Dry Shippers like DRYS, EXM, GNK, etc that have similar ship types (Panamex).4. With the stock very repressed and PRGN sitting on lots of cash from dilution, they add shares as part of their company buy-back. This is the craziness we are witnessing the last 3-5 days here.5. As the stock surges, more people look to see what is up. And what they find is a well-run company that's stock is seriously under-valued. Investors ride the wave up too pushing volume through the roof.6. But because PRGN knows fair value of their stock is in the $5-6 range, they just keep buying.and then I also think there is a slight chance this is happening:JP Morgan wants into the sector (was announced about 10 days ago) and is looking to invest heavily with the Dry Shipping companies. I think there might already be a big backdoor deal with JP Morgan to get PRGN even more money and we see a wave of ship buying/building going on with this company with the additional revenue generated. It's clear with 98% charters already sold for this company that this team can and should be managing more ships. In my opinion the stock is moving so quickly because Paragon is trying to buy back a ton of shares for themselves before this big announcement is made. Because they will have to divulge shares, cash positions, etc this is all happening before earnings. Limited days (Earnings should be in the middle of June) to make a lot of noise here. It would not shock me to hear an announcement where JP Morgan has made a $75-100M investment in to PRGN for a portion of their company. In return, JP Morgan pays off PRGNs debt and takes that business for themself. PRGN then starts adding to their FLEET and they become one of the bigger players in this sector.