Yes do indeed do due diligence on Lion. I looked into another electric bus manufacturer, GP, in some detail before I invested. Is Lion real? What are their revenues? What’s their yearly revenue growth? Etc.
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What other tech stock to consider?
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Yes do indeed do due diligence on Lion. I looked into another electric bus manufacturer, GP, in some detail before I invested. Is Lion real? What are their revenues? What’s their yearly revenue growth? Etc.
I would recommend trying out their App to get a feel for the product. I love everything I hear from their management team, there’s a couple of recent interviews(like this month) with the CEO and CFO. For me I like the clarity of the management team, so definitely listen to those interviews. I can see why Dave is so bullish. That does not mean they will succeed.
What I do not like is for eg: today’s tweets from their CEO and CTO claiming the 1 million number and comparing it to the large insurance providers. I’m not trying to downplay the significance of their growth but it’s not an apples to apples comparison given LMND is not in the auto insurance sector yet. The CEO has said they want to grow with the customer so it could time for this play out but when you look at their app reviews and the ease of business of etc there is definitely something in there. They are making it easy for consumers to do business with them.
Also do not like the amount of insider selling but then again a lot of them are predetermined/automatic sells.
Good article listing lots of cleantech companies. Not investing advice, but a long list of choices. New Cleantech Stock Resources
What are your top tech stock picks for 2021?
This year, my eyes are heavily on NVDA. It's make or break time now for the acquisition of ARM Holdings, if Nvidia successfully completes this merger it will put the most important architecture in computers going forward in the hands of a company which has long proven it can develop cutting edge graphics architectures, though their record with general computing is much more mixed. Nvidia wants to push into the server and workstation markets with ARM-based CPU's mated with their own GPU designs, and at the same time ARM sorely needs another company which can actually design powerful CPU cores that is willing to share them, something Apple famously does not. ARM cannot break through and start taking significant market share away from legacy x86 if the only competitive ARM designs are produced by Apple, and we all know that Qualcomm are entirely incapable of competing with Apple there.
This year, my eyes are heavily on NVDA. It's make or break time now for the acquisition of ARM Holdings, if Nvidia successfully completes this merger it will put the most important architecture in computers going forward in the hands of a company which has long proven it can develop cutting edge graphics architectures, though their record with general computing is much more mixed. Nvidia wants to push into the server and workstation markets with ARM-based CPU's mated with their own GPU designs, and at the same time ARM sorely needs another company which can actually design powerful CPU cores that is willing to share them, something Apple famously does not. ARM cannot break through and start taking significant market share away from legacy x86 if the only competitive ARM designs are produced by Apple, and we all know that Qualcomm are entirely incapable of competing with Apple there.
The bit on the website about the NGA merger: Lion Electric and NGA Corp. Announce Merger
They have 300 buses on the road now. Expecting to deliver 650 in 2021, with 300 "purchase orders" in hand now (not sure what that means, their preorders based on deposits?). As best I can tell from searching, their buses are around $300,000 each. So, 650 * 300,000 ~= 200 million in projected 2021 revenue. And 6000 over the next 4 years.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to know what that means though for their valuation. Maybe someone smart wants to restate in layman's terms what that merger is telling?
My gut says 650 buses in 2021 isn't that many, but I don't really know what the market is. At $300,000 each, that's like selling 2500 Model S in raw $...which doesn't seem like all that much? Then again, Tesla is so big now and the consumer car market so different from the bus market, that it's hard for me to draw meaningful parallels.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
NGA closed at 20.86 yesterday, I'd assume the PIPE sale would drop the price.
Lion Electric | The Bright Choice
Interesting company, I can't tell if they have anything proprietary or are just assemblers but I like the way they are targeting short haul diesel markets like buses and garbage trucks.
School buses with V2G Lion Electric Announces Successful Electric School Bus Vehicle-to-Grid Deployment with Con Edison in New York
Recent delivery of 10 buses to California Largest All-Electric School Bus Fleet in California Bolstered by 10 Bus Delivery from Lion Electric
The class action vultures are already circling, they seem to try this all the time with SPACs
SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Monteverde & Associates PC Announces an Investigation of Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. - NGA
Lion Electric | The Bright Choice
Interesting company, I can't tell if they have anything proprietary or are just assemblers but I like the way they are targeting short haul diesel markets like buses and garbage trucks.
School buses with V2G Lion Electric Announces Successful Electric School Bus Vehicle-to-Grid Deployment with Con Edison in New York
Recent delivery of 10 buses to California Largest All-Electric School Bus Fleet in California Bolstered by 10 Bus Delivery from Lion Electric
The class action vultures are already circling, they seem to try this all the time with SPACs
SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Monteverde & Associates PC Announces an Investigation of Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. - NGA
My app said it closed at $17.78 but was up a bit after hours. Make sure we’re talking about the same thing.
These SPAC deals seem to be shorted a lot so you gotta be ready for some volatility at first. That Romeo power one last week shot from 28 to 34 in the morning then dropped all the way down to 26 by the end of the day. I was able to sell at $32 and make a quick 15% so I felt good but it could easily have been a loss of I hadn’t set a limit sell. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were big fluctuations around NGA too.
The good news with NGA is that I got in at about $14 and I like the deal with Lion so I’m ok holding for a while. There will probably be some spikes around the actual merger that may be tempting to sell high and re-buy low but those have bitten me in the ass before when they don’t come back down.
Like you said though, they are working in an area that I think has potential and I’m optimistic about the Amazon thing so it’s worth the risk for me. At least they actually have some vehicles in service already that’s more than a lot of these EV startups can say.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I was looking at the Yahoo page. It's weird because the chart shows the last trade at $20.86 at 3:47PM but lists the closing price as $20.44 Northern Genesis Acquisition Co (NGA-UN) Stock Price, News, Quote & History - Yahoo Finance
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I looked it up, apparently the UN means "unit". It also trades under just NGA and that price matches yours.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SPACs/comments/ih07l9/what_does_un_in_ticker_symbol_mean/
Ahh, that explains it. Looks like I need to read this.
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies: An Introduction
These SPAC things are complicated...
So ... NGA/Lion. I took a look at their investor presentation. Sliiiick. They'll end up with $500M cash in the bank. Nice. BUT, this investor deck give ZERO past financial performance data. NO balance sheet, no P/L statements.
That in a nutshell is what's wrong with SPAC acquisitions. Lion is still a private company and has no duty to provide financials. Have they ever even been audited? Who knows. The money managers who run the SPAC have very little incentive to care what happens to their merged company past a couple of years from now. And with $500M in the bank, it'll take them many years to flame out if that is their future.
OK, they do give 2020 estimated summary numbers. $29M revenues, with ($39M) free cash flow burn. Green Power, a smaller company in a similar industry, probably will have $11M in revenues for calendar 2020 (their fiscal year isn't calendar year), which is actually a decrease from prior quarters no doubt to COVID induced order problems. They appear to be burning through less cash proportionally though. Green Power's market cap is about $600M, which is about 1/3 of the expected market cap of NGA/Lion (if I'm reading the financial docs correctly), which is in line with each company's relative revenues.
Lion is a real company, to be sure. But here's an example of one thing that is a problem. Their recent press releases talk about their "North American" factory. You can read that as "Canadian" factory (they are based in Canada). Green Power (GP) took the time, money and energy to build a second factory (they also are Canadian) in the US because without a US factory, they can't get access to a bunch of government incentives and the municipal and school bus sectors are very reliant on government incentives.
Interestingly, Ars just put Lion in their Deathwatch article just because they are an EV SPAC (NKLA isn't doing EV SPACs any favors!): Ars Technica’s 2021 Deathwatch—2020 was just the beginning
Before I personally would invest in Lion, I would want to see a real prospectus, 10-K or something that lays everything out. Without that, you are just rolling the dice on a transaction that already has shady characteristics.
That in a nutshell is what's wrong with SPAC acquisitions. Lion is still a private company and has no duty to provide financials. Have they ever even been audited? Who knows. The money managers who run the SPAC have very little incentive to care what happens to their merged company past a couple of years from now. And with $500M in the bank, it'll take them many years to flame out if that is their future.
OK, they do give 2020 estimated summary numbers. $29M revenues, with ($39M) free cash flow burn. Green Power, a smaller company in a similar industry, probably will have $11M in revenues for calendar 2020 (their fiscal year isn't calendar year), which is actually a decrease from prior quarters no doubt to COVID induced order problems. They appear to be burning through less cash proportionally though. Green Power's market cap is about $600M, which is about 1/3 of the expected market cap of NGA/Lion (if I'm reading the financial docs correctly), which is in line with each company's relative revenues.
Lion is a real company, to be sure. But here's an example of one thing that is a problem. Their recent press releases talk about their "North American" factory. You can read that as "Canadian" factory (they are based in Canada). Green Power (GP) took the time, money and energy to build a second factory (they also are Canadian) in the US because without a US factory, they can't get access to a bunch of government incentives and the municipal and school bus sectors are very reliant on government incentives.
Interestingly, Ars just put Lion in their Deathwatch article just because they are an EV SPAC (NKLA isn't doing EV SPACs any favors!): Ars Technica’s 2021 Deathwatch—2020 was just the beginning
Before I personally would invest in Lion, I would want to see a real prospectus, 10-K or something that lays everything out. Without that, you are just rolling the dice on a transaction that already has shady characteristics.
Be careful of buying into SPACs (like NGA) on the open market once a merger has been announced. According to this (from the above investor presentation):
NGA shareholders will get about 1/5 (20.5%) of the merged entity. The initial SPAC investors invested about $320M at an initial NGA stock price of $9.60. If the merged company lists at its expected initial trading price/value of around $1.9B, then these SPAC investors will get shares worth 1/5 of $1.9B = $380M, a bump up from their $9.60 NGA investment.
However, if you buy NGA now at its trading price of $17.80, you'll be getting merged company shares only worth a bit more than half of what you paid for.
Now, it is possible that the merged company's share price will spike up and you'll end up whole quickly. Or not.
Just be aware that you are buying a SPAC at an 85% premium to the initial SPAC investors if you buy NGA now.
Anyways, this info plus no real financial information that we will all get once we see their first 10-K in several months from now makes me want to sit on my hands for this one.
NGA shareholders will get about 1/5 (20.5%) of the merged entity. The initial SPAC investors invested about $320M at an initial NGA stock price of $9.60. If the merged company lists at its expected initial trading price/value of around $1.9B, then these SPAC investors will get shares worth 1/5 of $1.9B = $380M, a bump up from their $9.60 NGA investment.
However, if you buy NGA now at its trading price of $17.80, you'll be getting merged company shares only worth a bit more than half of what you paid for.
Now, it is possible that the merged company's share price will spike up and you'll end up whole quickly. Or not.
Just be aware that you are buying a SPAC at an 85% premium to the initial SPAC investors if you buy NGA now.
Anyways, this info plus no real financial information that we will all get once we see their first 10-K in several months from now makes me want to sit on my hands for this one.
Thanks for the insight. I just started trading a few months ago and have been watching these SPAC deals a lot. A good portion of them seem to run up in price before the merger, spike a little the morning of the merger, then drop afterwards. I was gonna play this one like that. I got in at $14 and I’ll be surprised if it didn’t hit $20 running up to the merger at which point I’d sell. Then I’ll plan to buy back in after the merger when it drops. No guarantee that’ll happen here but what you’ve described makes me think it might.
I just feel like buses and trucks are a good market for EVs and these guys at least have vehicles on the road which is a lot more than a lot of these EV startups can say. Thanks for digging into the reports a bit I’ve clearly got a lot to learn.
Yes, SPACs are complex. You are diving into the deep end as opposed to simply investing in stocks. Note that when you buy a SPAC, even one that hasn't announced a merger candidate yet and whose stock price hasn't gone up, you are still at a financial disadvantage to the original SPAC investors who usually get kickers like warrants. Usually it is very hard to be an original SPAC investor - they are usually reserved for institutional investors.
Thanks for the insight as to how SPACs usually trade post merger. I haven't been following them that closely.
You never know what's going to happen with this particular merger since EVs are red hot right now due to Tesla stock price. ALL EV stocks are elevated as a result. So all my caution in the world could go out the window if demand for a new EV company is strong.
Busses and trucks are indeed a good market, which is why I invested in GP. The market is very fragmented, unlike for EV passenger cars. Still early days in the EV bus and truck market. BTW, Lion will get blown out of the water selling class 8 trucks when the Tesla Semi hits the market. GP has wisely stayed out of that market. Luckily it isn't a big part of Lion's product line, but still.
This is just my “fun money” to play with in the 401K so it’s ok if I lose big on a few. 90% of it is in my vanguard target fund, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Tesla.
It’s been fun though. I’ve had big wins on NGMS, NNDM, EOSE, PLUG and ABML so far while APHA/TLRY and PROG have been big losers (but still may bounce back since I didn’t sell yet).
The two green energy SPAC I am in on right now are AMCI and NGA. I’m up about 20-25% on both in the last month or so but I need to figure out how to play the mergers.
That's my understanding as well. While doing some basic research, I found all now very familiar names - Moderna, BioNT, CureVac, etc.
ARKG has none of them, leaving me wondering if it is a strategy, or ARKG was formed before mRNA became a thing and is now lagging behind.
Would be great to hear from someone who (unlike me) knows what he is talking about.
Is this a specific company, mRNA, or a question please?
messenger RNA takes the coded message and tRNA "transfers" to a protein (very simplified explanation)
(somewhere my old copy of Lehninger biochem is gathering dust)
very simply the DNA "unzips", mRNA transcribes into a mirror copy, then the ribosomes ride down the copy and spit out proteins which then fold,
the tRNA has a 3 base pair sequence that corresponds to parts of the mRNA.
the tRNA carries an amino acid for the protein sequence
different tRNA's for each amino acid
the ribosomes ride down the mRNA, providing a platform
the tRNA brings in amino acids based upon the mRNA sequence
a protein is born (a massively parallel process btw)
Crisper can excise or add base pair sequences depending upon signals and sequences to add in specific (more or less) places so you can "build" or modify genes to get proteins you want but you have to know what you want.
(Isn't science great)(much of this happened after my spouse left the lab, at least Crisper
What company is this mRNA thing though please?
are they building synthetic DNA to make stuff?
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