Some companies seem to have a hard time staying out of the news: think Gibson, Sears, and Monster Products—which most of us still think of as Monster Cable. We last looked at the bumpy ride of this long-lived company in Copper #65, when the company’s implausible offering of cryptocurrency was shot down by the SEC.
So what are Noel Lee and crew up to now?
Unless you have access to SEC reports, the only place where you’ll find news of Monster’s current status is on Ted Green’s Strata-gee.com, which we also cited in our last article. Long story short: in the last quarter reported (ending June 30), Monster’s sales were down to $9.1 M, compared to $13.1 M in the same quarter of last year. The good news is that losses for the quarter were $6.9 M, down from $7.2 M loss during the same quarter last year. As good news goes—that’s pretty bad.
During the 9 months preceding June 30, Monster lost $31.3 M—2 1/2 times the losses incurred during the same 9-month period last year.
It’s hard to imagine that this can continue indefinitely—after all, they’re not Sears.
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In Copper #65, we also wrote about the initial public offering of Sonos. At the end of the first day of trading, the stock closed just under $20/share. Around the time of the launch, many analysts expressed skepticism about the company’s potential strength; as we mentioned back then, CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer compared Sonos to Fitbit: “…Fitbit’s stock has been a total, unmitigated disaster…I got burned by that one. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”
Cramer and his bearish colleagues may have been right. Shortly after the IPO, Sonos’ stock went as high as $23.60, but it’s mostly been downhill ever since. Having bottomed at $11.09, the stock is presently just above $12. To put it mildly, losing 40% in the span of 4 months is generally not viewed with favor on Wall Street—or anywhere else, for that matter.
We’ll keep an eye on Sonos in the months to come.
