Still Holding On? Lets discuss

Posts: 243 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 18, 2004 Posts: 243

Okay now that it looks like the flood of negative short holders have left the forum. How many of you are still holding onto your stock?

(Please keep your comments to yourself ckudrna and audiotron. It is well documented as to how you feel. You both are no longer holding stock and or have canceled service.)

I would like to keep this thread on topic with those who are actually holding stock.

I think those of us that are still holding are showing what it is like to be a contrarian investor Razz

Posts: 2135 · Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:07 am Post subject:

I am holding and looking forward to the end of the silent period.

Posts: 33 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jun 01, 2006 Posts: 33

OK. I wont comment. But I can ask questions!!!

When does the quiet period end?

Posts: 20 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 31, 2006 Posts: 20

This thread may suffer from people being unwilling to admit they
still have a position in this turkey, but I'll jump in -- I still have
my 200-share allocation. Why? I dunno, inertia maybe.
Before the IPO fiasco, VG was executing quite well. Post IPO,
there is much discontent among investors, but the customer
base is largely unaffected and the potential customers are
largely unaffected as well. In other words, VG's pre-IPO value
and post-IPO value are approximately the same.
So what about that value relative to the market cap at this point?
Well there are no earnings so we can't look at a P/E, but there
are sales. Sales must be something like 2M customers times
20 $ a month times 12 months... that's about 0.5B$, and
VG has a market cap of about 1.5B$, so it's priced at 3x sales.
That is not crazy high for a webby-techy growth story.

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 111

You mean you don't want to hear any more opinions contrary to your own about the merits of owning this stock?

Sure you have a reason to resent the short-sellers, we made a lot of money as you lost it. But why do you think we shorted Vonage, and not, say Google?

The reason is the Google is a good solid company. Vonage is not. It is run, moreover, by a guy who was fined $22.5 million for stock fraud by the SEC, and banned from the securities industry for life. Why are you giving such a person your money to invest? Why not buy Microsoft, whose founder is now in the process of giving away the billions that he made from starting a profitable company, rather that a guy whose first company (Datek) was shut down in a cloud of scandel. Or if you don't like microsoft, how about the highly profitable Apple?

However much you like Vonage service (I certainly do), the company itself resembles Pets.com in its financial situation and future prospects. Vonage has on average in the past three years spent $2 for every $1 that has come in. It fact I would be pretty shocked if you weren't satisfied with the service. To get your $25 a month, they have been spending $50 a month. The only way they can turn a profit is to cut their costs more than 50%, or more than double their prices. I bet if they did that you wouldn't be so satisified with their service.

Why do you think Jim Cramer, who made half a billion dollars as a hedge fund manager and billions for his clients, said "Put simply, Vonage is a piece of junk." ?

People with a lot more experience with investing than the Vonage customers who were taken advantage of in this IPO saw that this company was grossly, grossly overpriced. They saw an opportunity to profit, and they took it.

So many people, in fact, wanted to short Vonage that most stock brokers ran out of shares available to short. That was my case with E-Trade, they had no shares to short so I had to short Vonage options rather than the stock itself (the effect is the same, Vonage goes down, I make money).

I am so sure that Vonage is going to go bankrupt, and its stock is going to go to zero, that I am betting a very significant portion of my net worth on it.

Now maybe you have, like me, carefully evaluated every detail of Vonage's prospectus, looked into the pricing and expansion plans of its competitors, and made your own projections on MS Excel of Vonage's future, and after doing that come to a differant conclusion. If that's the case, more power to you.

I suspect, however, that a lot of people here bought VG shares because they liked they service and because they knew most IPO's work out pretty well. If that is the case, you all have to very coldly ask yourselves what will be more painful, swallowing your pride and selling now, or holding on and losing another $4,000.

Posts: 2135 · Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:50 pm Post subject:

audiotron wrote:

When does the quiet period end?

Tomorrow (25 calendar days after the stock was priced)

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 13

I sold my 100 position yesterday. I'll wait it out for the stock to offically bottom out until I re enter (we've seen slow periods like this before).

I want to own vonage stock, I just don't want to lose all of my equity to do it, and I've seen other stocks that I want to buy with that risk capital.

I'm not leaving vonage as a customer, and I have every intention of buying shares when it looks like it has reached rock bottom.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 4

DConnor, you have to be broke by now with all the losses you've unrealized. Doesn't it fill your gut with utter regret? You better not wait for the 180 day quiet period: Citron will unload his shares and say "to hell with Vonage, and its damn Underwriters."

You should have at least waited to load up on a day like today where the share price is much much lower than the first day.

Posts: 57 · Full Forum Member Joined: Sep 03, 2005 Posts: 57

Well, Dconner, I have posted here to let you and everyone know not to buy it or not to continue to buy it because it will get to the single digits.

Here wer are today at $9.60...Unlike the other guy who is shorting VG who is very sure VG is just going to go bankrupt. I am saying now that My original targetof $8.00 per share holds. After that, I don't know what will happen. I felt $8.00 is just about right for VG which I had absolutely no idea how the heck they priced it at $17!

So to those who have held on and continued to buy, $8.00 is knocking on the door and from that point on, it's anyone's guess. If I were shorting, that would be the point to cover my position. Beyond that, it's just gambling shorting it, much like a lot of people here gambling to buy at $17.

Posts: 94 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 17, 2006 Posts: 94

Did anybody catch my question on Mad Money on friday's show?

There is no question that we've all been hosed by this IPO. However, the same conditions that existed before the IPO are still in existence today. Vonage is paying for customers and is doing a pretty good job at it. They choose to spend discretionary money (marketing) on getting more customers. They believe these customers are worth more than what the market is valuing them. Many of these marketing expenses are variable costs and not fixed. Vonage chooses to grow and therefore be cash flow negative. Will these costs be worth it? That all depends on what can be earned from these customers over time. Determining this value is extremely complicated and unscientific. Anybody that states that the company should be worth X or 2X or 3X is just guessing. Current revenues are not the only variable in determining value.

What is a a broadband customer worth? Who knows?

The stock is being valued as a telephone play. We multiply our customer base by $24.99 and that by 12 and so on and so on. But what about all of the other possibilities of having an army of broadband customers. What about the possibilities of delivering video programming (ie. TV), video phone services, interactive marketing. etc.

Let's look at some of the positives and negatives for the stock in the short run.

Positives:
Management and Directors have an even bigger stake in the company than we do.
Barriers to entry are fairly low, but due to the extreme pricing by Vonage, it would be very costly to steal customers from them.
The product is excellent (according to my experiences).
Broadband customers will become even more valuable as telecom companies, and cable companies spend billions to expand and widen the pipeline into the home.

Negatives:
Company is cash flow negative.
Competition. Low barriers to enter the business.
Significant cadre of short sellers
Lack of a big pocket partner means that the company may not be able to act strategically and must begin to act tactically
Negative institutional bias (especially from telecom and cable companies)

I hold the stock and will continue to hold it. I wish I owned it here and not $17, but I think the company will survive and be a major player in the broadband marketplace.

If you own the stock, get over your anger with Vonage and tell your family and friends to convert to VOIP on Vonage. Maybe the stock is not the best value, but we all must agree that the product is the real deal.