Sintx Technologies (NASDAQ:SINT) Will Have To Spend Its Cash Wisely
There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, although Amazon.com made losses for many years after listing, if you had bought and held the shares since 1999, you would have made a fortune. But the harsh reality is that very many loss making companies burn through all their cash and go bankrupt.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Sintx Technologies (NASDAQ:SINT) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
Check out our latest analysis for Sintx Technologies
How Long Is Sintx Technologies's Cash Runway?
A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. As at June 2019, Sintx Technologies had cash of US$3.2m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was US$6.4m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 6 months from June 2019. That's a very short cash runway which indicates an imminent need to douse the cash burn or find more funding. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.
How Is Sintx Technologies's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
In our view, Sintx Technologies doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just US$359k in the last twelve months. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. As it happens, the company's cash burn reduced by 4.6% over the last year, which suggests that management may be mindful of the risks of their depleting cash reserves. While the past is always worth studying, it is the future that matters most of all. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.
How Easily Can Sintx Technologies Raise Cash?
Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for Sintx Technologies to raise more cash in the future. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash to fund growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).
Sintx Technologies's cash burn of US$6.4m is about 136% of its US$4.7m market capitalisation. Given just how high that expenditure is, relative to the company's market value, we think there's an elevated risk of funding distress, and we would be very nervous about holding the stock.
How Risky Is Sintx Technologies's Cash Burn Situation?
There are no prizes for guessing that we think Sintx Technologies's cash burn is a bit of a worry. In particular, we think its cash burn relative to its market cap suggests it isn't in a good position to keep funding growth. While not as bad as its cash burn relative to its market cap, its cash burn reduction is also a concern, and considering everything mentioned above, we're struggling to find much to be optimistic about. Looking at the metrics in this article all together, we consider its cash burn situation to be rather dangerous, and likely to cost shareholders one way or the other. For us, it's always important to consider risks around cash burn rates. But investors should look at a whole range of factors when researching a new stock. For example, it could be interesting to see how much the Sintx Technologies CEO receives in total remuneration.
If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
