Good morning all. We sure hope all of you have experienced the value of our market intelligence of late. If you've been following along, then you know our market commentary and calls have been spot on and have provided money making opportunities even in a downward trending market. Even though the market has shown some weakness of late, I think this market is due to bounce back and the strength of the bounce is likely going to tell us where this market is headed in the coming weeks.
Let's take our put options strategy in the major indexes off the table for the time being. The easiest money has already been made and we suspect a fair amount of volatility in the coming days before truly knowing if the recent selloff has legs or was simply consolidation for this market to move higher.
We've been noticing certain small and micro-cap names have been bucking the bearish trend and we say all the time if you can catch the right idea building positive momentum in a bearish environment, the results can be explosive. We've got a new idea for you today that is clearly starting to get some positive attention and our suspicions tell us this may only be the beginning of what could prove to be a very exciting opportunity.
Spotting a Trend Early
Back in the late 90's, we had the privilege of experiencing one of the biggest and most profitable trends in market history, the Internet. Tech companies and the Silicon Valley specifically were seeing valuations and growth that investors had never seen in their lifetime. What made it even more interesting is there was an equal number of professionals out there questioning the valuations as there were investors who didn't question the tech revolution for one New York minute.
When it was all said and done, those who understood the value and growth of the tech revolution made absolute fortunes, while those naysayers who kicked and complained all along the way that the market was recklessly valuing everything way too high ended up getting their ass handed to them until they finally gave up. Once the naysayers threw in the towel, the tech bubble finally burst and everything came back down to earth. However, early players made fortunes and record numbers of short sellers lost their shirts.
My point here is when big money decides what something is worth, you're best to go along and ride the wave. Don't fight the trend. The market proves over and over again it is always right. Whether it was the tech bubble, gold bubble, housing bubble or any other bubble you can think of, if you caught it early, you made a killing.
A Retail Revolution - The Next Big Wave of VC Valuations
We've all been privy to the recent success and growth of social media over the last few years. I don't have to explain that to you. Facebook, LinkedIn and Zynga are just a few names who have stolen the spotlight and provided early stage investors with incredible returns. However, if you're paying very close attention, there's another very large trend starting to form that is rapidly changing the way consumers shop. I'm not referring to just the simple e-commerce ability to buy goods over the Internet either.
What I'm referring to is an underlying retail revolution that is taking place with the incredible growth of flash sale sites and other discount retail sites online, also known as social commerce. Don't know what I'm referring to? Some of the World's largest Venture Capitalists do and I can assure you that you will know about them as soon as VC decides they want you to know about them.
See, this is how it works. Like with your ever so popular social media sites, early stage venture capitalists invested millions if not billions into many of the names you know today. Once they positioned themselves accordingly, they blitzed the media and made the IPO's of these stocks extremely well-advertised, thus establishing valuations that made the early stage investors a killing.
They're doing the same thing with flash sale sites right now. In a nutshell, a flash sales site takes inventory from a manufacturer, and because of the site's ability to reach out to a large number of its site's users all at once, they can move inventory way faster than a traditional brick and mortar outlet. With their ability to move massive amounts of inventory in a very short amount of time, they get ridiculously low pricing from the manufacturer that can't be found anywhere else. Win for the flash site and win for the consumer. It's a model that is already proving very profitable and is being well received by consumers.
In 2007, as the economy tanked and the demand for luxury products dove south, manufacturers sitting with billions of dollars in stagnant inventory faced the problem of converting inventory to dollars. The answer... call them flash sales, secret sales or private sales, they all meant one thing: deals that offer heavy discounts (up to 70%) for a limited period of time targeting a very large audience. The concept was born.
VC loved this concept so much they started pumping millions into names like Zulily, Hautelook, Gilt Groupe, Ideeli, Vente Privee and One King's Lane to name a few. Any of those names ring a bell? They're all smack dab in the middle of grabbing market share in the flash sales site space and the valuations are absolutely through the roof based on research information we've seen.
The average value of a flash site member (people like you and I) is being pegged at roughly $197 per Member. Enter... LuxeYard, Inc. (LUXR).
LuxeYard (LUXR) - The Only Pure Public Flash Site Play
Based on our knowledge, LUXR is the only pure public play in the flash sales space. While VC is out prepping and preparing other flash sale sites to go public, LUXR chose to take a potentially less dilutive approach and go public via RTO on the OTCBB. This provides early stage investors with a potential opportunity to be involved early enough to realize the type of potential gains that is often only achieved by pre IPO offerings.
LuxeYard, located at: http://www.luxeyard.com/, is a members-only flash sale site for luxury home furnishings, decor and fashion that offers access to unique products sourced by a seasoned team of buyers at a fraction of retail prices. LuxeYard is the pioneer of concierge buying, which gives members the power to determine what items will be sold on the site, and group buy which allows them to lower the price by sharing sale items with friends. With a highly experienced retail, ecommerce and digital marketing management team, LuxeYard partners with celebrity trendsetters and design and fashion industry insiders to deliver a curated buying experience and a point of view to its members.
The Company, since its January 24th launch this year, has managed to grow its Member base to over 425,000 Members in only three short months. The company's goal is to reach one million Members by the end of June 2012. So as you can see, although the Company is in its early stage of development, they are most definitely grabbing their fair share of the flash sales site space. It has been estimated that if LuxeYard can reach its 1M Member goal by June of this year, that it will have attracted more Members in its first six months than even Facebook managed to amass during its first six months. That's the power of the flash sales site space right now.
Let's go back to that Member valuation again now. With already 425,000 registered Members to its site, if we apply that valuation of roughly $197 per Member, that would put the current value of LUXR at a market cap of just over $83M. However, with the stock currently trading around $.80 cents and roughly 70M shares out, the market cap of LUXR right now sits at about $56M. That potentially puts LUXR trading at a 48% discount to its private peers and that's being conservative.
This is why we wanted to get this idea out there ASAP. Any time we can spot a stock that's currently trading at a 48% discount to its peers, there's often excellent money to be made in good time. Based on our valuations, this would put shares of LUXR at $1.18 per share and that doesn't even account for the growth of where the Company's has communicated it's headed. If they can achieve their 1M Member mark by June of this year, our calculations would potentially put the stock at $2.81 per share providing investors of the stock at current levels right now with about a 250% gainer. Show us another idea with that kind of realistic potential who is proving their business model, and we'd be more than happy to take a look at it.
The bottom line is there's so much to talk about with LuxeYard, as we think this is a speculative idea with enormous potential, but like always we want to get our newest ideas out to you first before putting it up on the site. We'll be making LUXR a Featured Stock on the site today after the close. Our Contributors and any other Members interested in sharing their thoughts on LUXR will have the opportunity to do so at the LUXR Hub located here: http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/Luxeyard-Inc/s/quote/p/s/LUXR/. We'll have a PDF report available there for your review as well as any other articles and blogs published on the Company to allow you to dig in and get the whole story both fundamentally and technically in the coming days and weeks ahead.
A Technical Look at LUXR and Our Conclusion
We all know what the market has done of late. With that being said, have a look at a recent daily chart of LUXR. Price has been gradually increasing with good volume interest and the stock only started getting attention early last month. The stock found a base around $.50 cents, made a nice move up to $.75 cents per share and like with most thrusting stocks, pulled back nicely only to regain momentum for what appears to be another nice leg up. The stock pulled back a bit yesterday providing what appears to be a very nice entry point from here.
It seems LUXR is moving nicely counter to the rest of the market. That's a very positive indication that if the attention and interest in the stock continues to increase like we think it will, this could prove to be a very profitable opportunity.
If you're looking for maximum gains while minimizing the risk, set a protective stop for yourself and let it run. I can't tell you how many times all of us here over the years took a small profit in a small cap idea only to be left behind for a much bigger move. By setting a protective stop, you're minimizing your downside risk while giving the stock some room to breathe and appreciate.
Of course, everyone's financial landscape and risk tolerance is different so you have to do what's right for you and I would never encourage someone to invest in a micro-cap idea who couldn't stomach the risk. However, with the rapidly growing popularity in the flash sales space, shares of LUXR may benefit greatly from the media and other big name financial firms who will start capitalizing on a trend that is still somewhat in its infancy.
It's a big boy early stage type opportunity and that's what many savvy investors are always on the hunt for. You're hearing about LUXR here first and that's our goal... to bring you small stocks before they become big.