I have had a long relationship with Arcam (AMAVF) as well. It’s a Swedish 3D printing company that specializing in printing in metal for the aerospace and medical implant industries (so far). I first bought into it in early December of 2012, at $15.38, after reading a very informative article on Seeking Alpha. During the 3-D printing craze, this stock got as high as $197. (I sold most of my position at about $180). I subsequently split 4:1 so in current prices my entry was about $3.85 and I sold out at about $45.00. Recently I got back in with a small position at between $18.30 and $19.50 (say $18.90 average).
This is a great little company, so why did I get out. Well, during the craze, 3-D stocks went out of sight, including Arcam, in spite of moderate growth rates, and I thought it was ridiculous (been there, did that, in the internet bubble of 1999).
Why did I buy back in: Well all the news about Arcam has been very, very good, and the price has gradually come down to $18 ($72 pre-split). What was the good news? Well here is a list of the multimillion dollar orders they received in the last 4 months of 2014:
Received two separate orders for EBM systems for clients in Italy and in China.Business Wire (Dec 31)
Order for an Arcam Q20 system from Italian industryBusiness Wire(Dec 23)
Arcam: Order for an EBM system from Japanese industryBusiness (Dec 22
Order for Two Arcam Q10 Systems from Implant Customer in China Dec 15)
Order for Arcam Q10 System from Implant Industry Business Wire(, Dec 4)
Order for Five Arcam Q10 Systems from Lima Corporate Business Wire(Dec 4)
Arcam: Order for EBM System from an Institute in China Business Wire(Dec 2)
Arcam: Order for EBM System from European Industry Business Wire(Dec 2)
Arcam: Order for EBM System from European Aerospace Industry, Nov 26
Arcam: Order for EBM System from US Aerospace Industry Nov 25)
Arcam Receives Order for EBM System from Asia Business Wire(Tue, Nov 11)
Arcam: Order for EBM system from Asia Business Wire(Fri, Oct 24)
Arcam: Order for EBM System from Implant Manufacturer Oct 16
Arcam Receives Order for an Arcam Q20 System Oct 14
Arcam Receives Order from Russia Business Wire (Mon, Oct 6)
Arcam: Order for EBM System for Material Development Business Wire Sep 23)
Arcam Receives Order for a Q20 System from France Business Wire (Tue, Sep 9)
Arcam acquires strategic partner DiSanto Technology Business Wire (Wed, Sep 3)
Arcam Receives Order from Russia Business Wire ( Sep 3)
Order from ProtoService in Italy for a Second Arcam Q10 System(Aug 26)
"With these two orders we close 2014 with a total order intake of 42 EBM systems, an increase of about 55% compared to the order intake in 2013”. These are also newer, fancier, and higher priced.
If you go to their website, or the yahoo finance ARCM.ST or AMAVF boards, you can read all about the company, and their machines.
If you go to either MF or Seeking Alpha and enter AMAVF or Arcam you’ll find lots of articles about the company.
I also got in a hassle on the XONE board when both XONE and Arcam were about $50 to $60. Same old song: “Why would you buy XONE which is losing lots of money when you can buy Arcam, doing the same thing (metal printing), which is making lots of money? Xone is still losing money, and has fallen to $16.50 now. Arcam is at $18.50, but it has split four for one, so pre-split it’s equivalent to $74.00!!!
For comparison, here’s a quote from XONE’s last earnings report”
"We continue to struggle with predicting timing of our machine sales and therefore we are lowering our expectations for 2014 revenue based on clearer visibility for the remainder of the year. We’re focused on our development activities, especially initial customer reaction to our production-oriented machines currently under development, which can be applied to a variety of industrial applications.
XONE is still a buy on MF and Arcam has never been recommended.
So why am I not buying a larger position in Arcam?
It’s a foreign company and while it’s listed on Nasdaq in Europe, it’s not listed in the US. That means the AMAVF board has little volume and wide spreads. And if I want to buy it in Europe where there’s plenty of volume, I have to call Schwab, place the order with the foreign desk, and it’s a hassle as well as lots higher commission.
Being a foreign company, although their earnings reports are translated into English, it’s hard for me to be sure that all the terms are equivalent, and the ways of calculating, etc.
And the earnings jump around because of the lumpiness of the shipments,
And they report in Swedish Krona’s.
And…
So I’m keeping my position small. I couldn’t help myself getting back in when I kept seeing all those orders roll in, but I have companies with equally good pictures without the hassles of a foreign company. If they got listed on the US Nasdaq and had to follow US rules, and report in dollars, I’d buy more in an instant.
Saul