Arcontech Share Discussion Threads

[multibagger] 29/11/2017 18:26

Bones has called in the red army :)

Welcome onboard Red Army !

[bones] 29/11/2017 15:44

I put another 10k into my wife's SIPP for good measure!

[gsbmba99] 29/11/2017 14:44

12 Oct - 27 Nov (inclusive) 155k shares traded. 28-29 Nov 133k and counting. An ever present reminder of the peaks and troughs of small cap liquidity.

[red army] 29/11/2017 13:39

Have added this morning as well.

[multibagger] 29/11/2017 12:42

Most welcome Bones and Janeann has some ARC as well.

Lovely to see new investors coming in and taking decent positions !

Increased volumes over the last couple of days/today (thanks Xajorkith, Bones and gleach23)

Let's see if the lunchtime investor is back...good luck all :)

[bones] 29/11/2017 12:27

Thanks multibagger and likewise with WEY!

[multibagger] 29/11/2017 12:11

Welcome Bones and I am sure that your confidence in ARC is well placed :)

[daniel levi bmd] 29/11/2017 12:03

Blockchain tech stocks guys...

Next big boom..

fyi

The Milestone Group It's going Blockchain. Watchlist! News is on the way!

Dan
x

[bones] 29/11/2017 11:42

Thanks gleach23. One to hold I think. Apart from the points already raised, I like the cash build up here. ARC was the first name out when I performed a software screen of stocks with low PEG, low market cap and plus 20% growth. Clearly their risk is with losing a big customer but given that this has not happened over time, I assume their product to be in demand until the facts change.

[gleach23] 29/11/2017 10:44

Thanks bones. I topped up with 5k earlier which was reported. At the time there was plenty available to buy online but now it's down to a max of 5.3k at full market quote of 64p. Can sell up to 10k @ 62.25. I like the chart too.

Looks like your 15k just came through.

[bones] 29/11/2017 10:17

I picked up an initial 15k this morning. Interesting that the trade is being delayed yet an apparent 20k sell at 62p has appeared immediately. This is usually MM tactics to hide demand and encourage loose holders to sell on the evidence before them!

[gsbmba99] 28/11/2017 14:48

Eminently sensible logic. Since we're sharing, I like the fact that the company expenses development expenditure and hasn't yet recognised a deferred tax asset. Signs of conservative financial management.

[xajorkith] 28/11/2017 09:43

Been adding a few here recently.

Mkt cap at the bottom end of what I normally go for but seems like a quality company with plenty of room to run.

I particularly like the tight cost control, high & rising margins, and excellent FCF/cash generation - especially given it's size & sector.

Also very reassuring to see it has significant institutional backing & the confidence to initiate a dividend at such an early stage.

With around 20p of cash, an ex-cash pe of under 8 & oversold chart seems like a good entry point to me.

Happy to hold patiently & to add as the story develops :-)

[multibagger] 21/11/2017 08:47

Discussions from a long time ago led me to believe that JP Morgan is our biggest customer, and that Citi and Deutsche are the other majors. However, my recollection could be wrong :(

Good luck all :)

[apad] 21/11/2017 07:50

Thanks, gsbmba99 - much appreciated.
apad

[gsbmba99] 21/11/2017 07:33

APAD - the annual reports have some info on customers. Customers are not named but names overheard include the BofE, JP Morgan and Deutsche (no idea on order of importance). Looking back over time, Customer 1 was £518.7k in FY14, £585.4k in FY15, £601.6k in FY16 and £613.0k in FY17 representing growth of 12.9% (FY15), 2.8% (FY16) and 1.9% (FY17). Customer 2 was £336.2 in FY14, £338.3k in FY15, not listed as over 10% in FY16, and £357.3k in FY17. Customer 2 may be different in FY14/FY15 and FY17. Customer 3 was newly listed in FY17 as £309.2k (up from below 10% (£214k) in FY16). Customer concentration is extreme with top 3 customers >50% revenue.

[cbootle] 20/11/2017 20:15

Hi APAD! Strictly speaking, they don't "supply real time data from a number of sources" - what they do is supply software that allows this to happen.

Typically, large financial institutions have a number of data feeds, including their own (often created on Excel spreadsheets, using Excelerator, a big seller for Arcontech). Arcontech software normalises these feeds so they can be fed to various other Arcontech servers, including their Multi-Vendor Contribution System - which does the reverse, allows contribution of data (which may have been processed) to multiple feeds simultaneously.

A number of institutions are currently evaluating a new Arcontech product, under-wraps, but shown at the AGM. It looks promising.

Disclosure - I have just over 3%, holding long term, and worked at Arcontech for 11 years.

[multibagger] 20/11/2017 19:58

Welcome aboard Wilmdav and APAD :)

[wilmdav] 20/11/2017 19:45

Hi APAD

There are others here better qualified than I to address your concerns. To be honest, I don't yet know a lot about ARC. What I do know is that their financial management has been excellent and sense there is momentum in the progress they have made over the past 10 years.

My website is very labour intensive. I had to find ways of reducing the workload. Most of the data now comes from a third party. Removal of the update page was another economy. I will think about re-introducing it, just showing dates of new entrants. Amending the page every time I updated an existing holding was a pain.

I have no idea how many people visit the site and may add a counter if there is a decent free one. The original purpose of creating the charts was to provide me with an easy reference to past performance without having to re-read loads of previous reports every 6 months or so. The decision to upload the charts was partly as a discipline to make sure the input was as accurate as possible. I know others have found the site useful.

[apad] 20/11/2017 18:02

Couple of concerns, David.

They supply real time data from number of sources. I believe this is a competitive business.

I also believe that the developers of fast trading algorithms will use such services.

On their website is a small number of very large companies that use their services.

I would like to see a much more comprehensive description of their customers and how they have (hopefully) increased over the years.

Have you come across some-such?

apad

ps
Preferred your website when updates were flagged up front?

[wilmdav] 20/11/2017 17:42

Excellent board. The link below is to an exercise I do on any company before deciding whether or not to invest. I have taken a small position.

[gsbmba99] 17/11/2017 11:30

From same article:
"Firms are being driven to develop electronic trading for economic reasons. The regulatory environment is aligned with this aim. However, there is a gap in technical ability and demand. If execution opportunities are distributed across multiple different trading venues for an already diverse set of assets, liquidity aggregation is getting harder, not easier.

“As there are a hundred different venues, and each is marketing themselves to capture flow and create liquidity,” says Cassin. “How does a trader know if they are getting a best quote or execution? They are having to call around. That is the problem we want to help solve.”"

[gsbmba99] 17/11/2017 11:27

Article appears to be paid for write-up of Vela by Realization Group. It talks about electronification of fixed income markets. Some of it is driven by requirement for best execution in MiFIDII. Slightly tangential to ARC but interesting.
"The varied electronification of trading between different categories of assets based on issuer and type – listed derivatives are largely electronic, municipal cash bonds barely at all – means that it is unevenly distributed. There are currently around 50 venues trading corporate bonds globally.

Brian Cassin, Head of Business Development at Vela, says, “This proliferation leads to an implementation problem for market participants, as each venue is leveraging a different technology, protocol and reference keys, cross venue transparency becomes very challenging. Add to this that many of the fixed income group’s technology is not as mature as their equity counterparts, so this transformation will take a lot longer, without real investment.”"

[multibagger] 14/11/2017 07:07

Good morning gsbmba99 and many thanks for your insights into this area.

Our ARC share price appears to be in a holding pattern and needs a catalyst in terms of contract news it would appear to shift it to the 70s. Though discerning investors appear to be quietly increasing their stake with trades that don't move the market.

Good luck :)

[gsbmba99] 14/11/2017 07:00

Multibagger, my recollection was that allowing customers to capture, repackage and sell their own real-time proprietary information was an additional feature they were using to market the MVC server software. I don't recall hearing any evidence that they had customers actually doing this. It was more that MVC could allow them to do it. It's not clear to me what bank internal data could be sold. The most valuable information would be trade flow but that could compromise the bank's proprietary positions or those of their customers.