Northgate

Northgate: Nearly Destroyed, Rs. 14 Now

No Comments » Written on April 22nd, 2011 by
Categories: Northgate, Stocks

Once in a while I look at stocks I'd written about and check how they're doing now. A quick check on Northgate Technologies after a mail from Kaushik threw up this very sad chart:

Northgate Chart

For a while, these guys advertised like crazy on TV, sites such as Bharatstudent.com and such. Now the stock's nearly dead. They've managed to lose an incredible amount of money of their own, apart from their shareholders'.

See that price spike to the 30s in November? They managed to sell 20% as "QIP" to two funds, around 45 lakh shares each at Rs. 20.5. One of those funds has sold about 12 lakh shares already. And earlier, a number of key people resigned and sold shares.

In what seems like a very desperate attempt to create interest, they have a press release saying that they integrate with Facebook. Ooh.

Also read:

Sustained Insider Selling in Northgate - August 21, 2008

Northgate recap: 50% down in 1.5 months: Oct 5, 2008

Posted in Northgate, Stocks

Northgate recap: 50% down in 1.5 months

No Comments » Written on October 5th, 2008 by
Categories: Northgate
I had talked about Sustained Insider Selling in Northgate Technologies, on a post dated Aug 21. On that day the stock was at 290. The chart then:

Look at where the stock is on Friday:

A drop to 145 is now halfway, in a month and a half. No more insider selling noted after that post, but someone's been pulling the plug. No F&O - so no shorting - so it's investors pulling out.

Posted in Northgate

Northgate – Sustained Insider Selling

No Comments » Written on August 20th, 2008 by
Categories: Northgate
Northgate technologies is an IT play that does social networking and international voice calling software and hardware. They own BharatStudent.com (a social networking portal), Globe7, a software that has voice dialling features and Axill, an online ad intermediary.

A year or so back, there were a number of posts of how this was the next big thing and how Northgate would take the world by fire and become the next youtube. I had this chat session with a person advertising the company asking him - so why is Yogesh Patel, the COO, selling all his shares? And there was no answer.

Turns out Mr. Patel (or at least, someone named Yogesh Patel, who sits on the board as an "independent director" - looks to me like the same person) has continuously been selling shares nearly every month, 10,000 at a time.

And so have other insiders, as the BSE announcement archives will tell you.

While the company had a 1:1 bonus last August, the stock price has shown no signs of being very excited. From a high of (an adjusted price of) Rs. 760, the stock is now near 52 week lows - at about 290.

And insiders are still selling. Patel sold another 30K shares on 14 August 2008. Sure, one can't predict much using insider selling - but I've now seen a pattern in two other stocks. ICICI Bank and FirstSource.

Insider sales can be misleading when insiders sell to generate cash. But sustained selling, or selling a large chunk of one's stake has to be viewed with caution. No?

Posted in Northgate