Tech Stocks: Taser on the Move Again
By Ann Sosnowski
In this article
TASR jumped up on news that it received three domestic orders and one international order from an undisclosed country.
The day before, the CEO had exercised his right to buy a large chunk of shares.
Even though the country that ordered $1.4 million worth of Taser's hasn't been disclosed, I expect that it's France's Sarkozy that gave the go-ahead.
Tech Stocks: Taser on the Move Again
After a swift upmove in late April/early May after announcing a record quarter revenue of $15.3 million, Taser International Inc. (TASR:NASDAQ) is attracting bullishness to its stock yet again.
TASR had issued in its first-quarter release the following forward-looking statement:
“In particular, we believe the commencement of sales of the TASER C2 in the second quarter will provide the consumer with next generation, life protecting technologies which are designed to maximize public safety and minimize the potential for misuse."
Odds are Taser already knew what was coming down the pike. But the majority of their new sales announced were from the company's TASER X26 and Taser Cam accessories, not the C2 (which is the consumer model). And investors were very happy to hear it today, popping TASR up on a gap open today to $10 per share.
First off, yesterday the company released some interesting news. TASR CEO Rick Smith exercised stock options to obtain 504,000 shares of Taser stock, which expires on May 29.
Also announced yesterday was that TASR had its 46th straight liability case against it dismissed. This is on top of the seven human studies that concluded that the use of TASR's non-lethal weapons does not cause cardiac dysrhythmia or any long-term cardiac effects that could be life threatening. These studies were funded by an educational grant from Taser and others were partly funded by the National Institute of Justice.
Then this morning, the company announced a significant round of TASER orders.
Tech Stocks: Taser's Order from France?
First, the domestic orders: Washington State law enforcement agency ordered 500 TASER X26 weapons and accessories; Tallahassee's law enforcement agency ordered 271 of the weapons with accessories; and the Scottsdale, Arizona police department ordered 125 TASER X26 weapons with accessories.
As far as the international order, Taser received an international law enforcement order (the country has not been announced yet) for $1.425 million worth of Taser X26' and accessories!
Could this be the rumored international order that was considered a lock as soon as Nicolas Sarkozy was elected as president of France? Sarkozy had previously mentioned that he would like to put a Taser in the hand of every law enforcement officer in France.
Of course, playing Taser on the intuition that France could place a large stun gun order was considered speculative by some analysts. But it can't be mere coincidence that on the heels of Sarkozy's election, this huge international order comes in for the non-lethal weapons company.
I'd be extremely surprised if this $1.4 million stun gun order is not from France at this point in time.
Both the domestic and international orders announced today will be shipped during the current second quarter. I guess we'll find out then who placed the order!
I still consider TASR a great buy at its current price on the heels of these increased orders, as well as the continued dismissals of liability cases and the health studies that are coming out to back up the safety of the weapons.
For those of you still holding Taser International Inc. (TASR:NASDAQ), you might want to double down here.
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Ann Sosnowski is a small and mid-cap stock analyst for Taipan Financial News. She is the editor of Diligent Investor, a monthly newsletter that balances conservative and moderately risky investments that pertain to current market trends. She is also the editor of Diligent Investor Micro-Cap Hot Sheet, a monthly newsletter that finds the hottest penny and micro-cap stocks on the market.
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