Have a look at todays news threads for EVS, great first half results, important acquisition announced, more exciting news promised in February. Up 25% so far today.

Morning all. I absolutely concur with your positive sentiments. It would seem from this morning's strong opening that many agree with you. The bid has slipped back a bit but don't be tempted out. We've yet to see the best from these. Interest is still growing in EVS and the MMs are not exactly flush with stock. With a market cap of around 9 million and projected profits of &750K for 2004/5 and 1.62 million for 2005/6, this stock has further to go. If the latter proves correct then we are looking at a forward PE of around 5.55. For a growth stock that makes EVS remarkably cheap. With a significant product launch due any day now, I would expect this stock to test new highs before the week is out. Good luck!

I've pulled this from another BB, which although I've seen it before, provides a good insight into the workings of MMs.

MARKET MAKER SPEAKS OUT: Ways of a Market Maker

I was an OTC MM for about 10 years ending in the late 80's. Since then I have been strictly an investor. Since I have not been that up to date in MM rules I will only make statements that I feel fairly confident are still accurate regarding these activities. By and large most MM don't have a clue nor do they care to learn, about the fundamentals of the stocks they trade.

They just try to make orderly markets. When dealing with BB stocks it is very easy for a MM to get trapped into being short in dealing in a fast moving market. Reason being; most of the MM's in this stock are what are called "wholesalers" this means they don't have retail brokers "working" the stocks.

So they have to rely on what's known as the "call" from larger retail houses. If a "Big" retail firm like an E-trade calls up a market maker to purchase say 5,000 shares of a stock, they expect to get an "execution" from that market maker. If he turns them down, or only gives a partial then the "Big" firm will go to another MM.

If this second MM "fills the order" then that "Big" firm has a moral obligation to continue to give future "business" in that stock to that MM who performed (his life blood). This will go on until he "fails" to perform and so on.

Contrary to popular opinion the "Big" firms Do NOT neccessarily go to the "Low Offer" to fill a buy order (Or high bid for a sell). They "Go" to who they think will perform to fill the order and expect that MM to "match" the "low offer" in the case of a buy (bid in the case of a sell). Even though this MM might in fact be the "high bid" and not really want to sell any more.

As a wholesaler he must perform or he will get a reputation as a "non-performer" with the "Big" houses and will cease getting "calls" which means he will soon go out of business. I mentioned above that this activity is very significant to BB stocks. I say this because most of the trades in these BB stocks are "unsolicited" and are done through discount houses.

With the above groundwork laid, let me try to explain how market makers get short even if they like the Company; Lets say that a stock (shell) has been lying quietly at $.25 bid $.50 offered. A limit order comes into one of the MM's to Buy at $.50 for a thousand shares. Prior to this trade that MM may be "flat" (neither long or short any shares). He fills the order and is now short 1,000 shares. He may raise his bid hoping to find a seller to "flatten" out his position. But before he realizes it a wave of buyers have come in and cleared out all the $.50 offers. Now the stock is $.50 bid .75 offered. Here comes that "Big" firm he just sold the 1,000 shares to at .50 with another bid for 1000 at .75. He makes this print. Now he is short 2,000 at an average of .625. The market keeps moving and now its .75 bid 1.00 offered. Now he has to make a decision.

Just like investors, MM Hate to take a loss. So 9 times out of 10 he will now sell 2000 at 1.00 making him short 4000 but with an average .81. At this time he would love to see a seller at .75 so he can cover his short and make a few bucks.

But instead the market keeps moving up. Now it is 1.00 to 1.25 and here comes the buyer again at 1.25. He doesn't want to lose the call so now he needs to sell 4,000 at 1.25 to keep his break even point above the bid. Now he is short 8,000. Market moves up to 1.25 bid 1.50 offer here comes the buyer now he feels he must sell 8000 here because "stocks don't go up forever".

Now he is short 16,000. And so on and so on. If the stock keeps moving up, before he realizes it he could be short 50k or 100k shares (depending how big his bank is).

Finally the market closes for the day and on paper he may look all right in that his "break even" price may be around the closing price. But now he has to figure out how to entice sellers so he can cover this short. It is important to note that if this happened to one MM it has probably happened to most all of them.

Some ways MM's entice sellers; Run the stock up with a "tight spread" in a fast market, then "open" up the spread to slow down the buying interest. After it has "cooled off" for a little while lower the offer below the last trade right after a small piece trades on the offer then tighten the spread so that the sellers feel they can take a "quick profit" by "hitting the bid" on the tight spread.

Once the selling starts the MM's will walk it down quickly by only making small prints on the way down with the tight spread. Another way is by running the stock up in the morning, averaging up their short then use the above technique to walk it down in the afternoon.

Hopefully after doing this for several days, it will demoralize the buyers. The volume will dry up and the sellers will materialize thinking that the game is over.

Contrary to popular opinion, MM usually Do Not Cover in Fast moving markets either Up or Down if they are short. They Short More. They usually try to cover after the frenzy is out of the market. There are many other techniques they use but the above are the most popular.

This technique works about 9 times out of 10 particularly in a BB market. However that is because 9 out of 10 BB stocks are BS. Remember what I said above. Most MM's don't have a clue as to the value of a Company until they get trapped. If the Company has solid fundementals and a bright future. Then the stock will do very well. And the activity that caused the situation will prove to even help the future stock activity because it created an audience

Just checked the price online. Bid down again but offer is static at 4.00p buy and max 150K at that. MMs are trying to square their books so don't be tempted to sell.

Thank you for the above grevis-it explains very clearly why we have to watch out for the pitfalls. you almost feel sorry for the poor mms-I said almost!!

Thank you grevis for the way of mm's working. I've bought again this morning so price fall is a little disappointing but will enjoy the climbs another day.

Max online buy is still 150K. Spread 3.6p v 3.8p. Just topped up.

EVS is now on the way up, which is not unexpected. Spread is now 3.71p v 3.9p.

Bought 250k @ 3.9p which hasn't showed up yet. No doubt it will show as a sell later on today! Even with the occasional shake the MMs aren't picking up enough shares and the new product launch is imminent. What will they do then?

The only way is up.

Well done. Just logged back in and have noticed the recovery is well underway. Also hit 4.10p on the offer. Great stuff!

At 11.24 today who would sell 4 shares?
Buys out numbering sells 5:1 so just wait for the increase in sp

Well the stock rebounded as expected. What we need now is that RNS to spur us on to the next level. Lets hope for 'blue' tomorrow. Good Luck!

We may get a tick up soon. The online bid with Barclay's has just jumped to 3.81p. Offer 3.85p. Max online buy 150K

There's the tick up! Offer is now back to 4p.

Max online buy is down to 75K

In the 6 months to December 31st, revenues should be up in excess of 70% and gross margin contribution is up more than 120%. It said this reflected the company's concentration on higher-quality and higher-value business streams. Un-audited like-for-like comparisons show that revenue for the period was in excess of 9 million pounds compared to 5.24 million pounds last time. The company also announced that subsidiary Seven Telecom, completed the acquisition of customer contracts from The Airtime Group, which trades in the UK as World Telecom, a subsidiary of Canisp (up 1.5p to 30p). It said the contracts acquired currently generate revenues in excess of 1 million pounds a year at significant gross margin and the expected consideration, which is payable in cash, will be in the order of 340,000 pounds, dependant on performance of the customer contracts in the first 6 months following the acquisition.

To sum up, EVS has real Potential!

Headquartered in London, Envesta owns state of the art infrastructure
interconnected with worldwide Tier One carriers such as British Telecom and T
Systems. Significant capital investment in Voice over Internet Protocol,
("VoIP") technology has expanded Envesta's technical capabilities, opening up
new routes to Africa and Asia at greater margins to the Company.

From the news it would appear that stocks were marked down today as the investment community thought the Americans were responsible for the explosion near Iran's Nucleur installation. Wall Street recovered when told it was nothing to do with the US. The markets are expected to rally tomorrow.

Please could someone tell me when the results are out so I can look to get more shares before then. Thanks

It has gone up to 4p now

Are we now seeing a definite breakout about the 4p level that we've all been waiting for?