Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Despite announcing the sale of another minority stake in a subsidiary Tuesday, shares of NQ Mobile Inc (NYSE: NQ) steadily dropped 15% Wednesday on heavy volume as investors continued to wait for the release of its annual report.
So what: In a deal similar to its sale of a small chunk of gaming subsidiary FL Mobile almost two weeks ago, NQ Mobile yesterday announced it had agreed to sell 3.4% of its NationSky subsidiary for $18 million. That gives NationSky alone a nearly $530 million valuation, or more than NQ Mobile's entire $481 million market capitalization as of this writing.
However -- and despite NQ Mobile's previous assurance on June 4 that its special committee's independent investigation yielded no evidence of fraud -- investors rightly remain nervous, as NQ Mobile still hasn't released the full audit or filed its annual report.
Now what: NQ Mobile shares also plunged on May 15 after the company delayed filing its annual report for the second time. But investors' patience is really wearing thin now, especially considering NQ mobile's own report admitted the team "observed indications that some information might be missing" from the devices it collected during the course of the investigation. Worse yet, it states "Company management and staff were unable to provide a credible explanation for what the Investigation Team observed."
To be sure, NQ Mobile shares may look incredibly cheap on the surface trading at less than five times next year's estimated earnings. But once again, I'll reiterate that there are simply far too many red flags on NQ Mobile for me, as a long-term investor, to get behind it.
