Integral Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS:ITKG) Has a Eureka Moment
Experienced penny stock investors know that words like “breakthrough” in the press releases of small OTC companies often warrant some extra caution. Apparently, they reckon that Integral Technologies, Inc. (OTCMKTS:ITKG) is among the exceptions.
About forty-five minutes before yesterday’s opening bell, the company announced that it has invented a highly conductive bipolar plate which will eventually form the basis of a new type of lightweight cost-effective lead acid battery. The press release contains quite a lot of information on the science behind ITKG‘s new invention and the potential market. It also talks at some considerable length about how many advantages the future product has over the currently available alternatives. In other words, it has everything a penny stock investor could wish for.
It goes without saying that Tuesday’s session was an interesting one for ITKG. In a matter of six and a half hours, investors traded more than 914 thousand shares (more than five times the 30-day average) which resulted in a dollar volume of about $730 thousand. A lot of people jumped in, but, considering the big news, the stock didn’t behave as expected. ITKG opened the day with a gap up at $0.795 and ran to an intraday peak of a little less than $0.84. Then, however, it stopped and slipped back down to a close of $0.785 (just 3% above Monday’s value).
Not really the sort of performance people wanted to see, but despite this, they seem optimistic. They’re really happy with the potential of the new battery and they reckon that it will bring in quite a lot of revenues to ITKG. We hope that they’re right because the company’s latest 10-Q isn’t exactly perfect. Here’s what the figures looked like on March 31:
- cash: $306 thousand
- current assets: $382 thousand
- current liabilities: $1.1 million
- quarterly revenues: $45 thousand
- quarterly net loss: $1.1 million
ITKG started off nineteen years ago with the idea of turning their ElectriPlast conductive plastic into a household name, but right now, all they have to show for it is an accumulated deficit of over $50 million. And those of you who aren’t fond of reading the 10-Q’s and 10-K’s closely should probably bear in mind that only $2,950 of the rather dismal quarterly revenues came from the sales of ElectriPlast. The rest were the result of some licensing contracts and engineering services.
All in all, despite the interesting business plan, ITKG isn’t really the most solid OTC company out there. Yet, its overall stock performance isn’t really that horrific. At the beginning of the year, for example, it was hovering around the $0.45 mark whereas right now it’s much higher than that and it seems to be holding its ground relatively well. The company also enjoys quite a lot of support from the shareholders and judging by the message boards and social networks, they seem to be particularly excited about the recent news.
That said, they were just as excited a couple of months ago when Doug Bathauer, ITKG‘s CEO, said that a huge deal will be inked within the next three to six weeks. He then failed to meet the deadline and was forced to apologize for playing Nostradamus. Apparently, most of the shareholders have accepted his apologies, but it’s fair to say that from now on, Mr. Bathauer won’t have a lot of room for error.
