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DroneShield (ASX:DRO) has issued a response to the ASX compliance department that can only be called ‘ballsy,’ given it’s told the regulatory office that questions around its directors’ decision(s) to dump shares in a shock move was ‘hypothetical’ and that any response would be ‘speculative in the abstract.’
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Whatever that means, it hasn’t been enough to spare the company from pain; on a day where almost everything is green thanks to the machinations of Jensen Huang (via Nvidia’s double beat), DroneShield was down nearly -4% in mid-afternoon trades to $1.89/sh, now firmly below the psychological $2 level.
Let’s just recap what’s happened in recent history: early last week, Droneshield issued news of three new contracts; then retracted that statement several minutes later. Now, four days on, DroneShield has revealed that its CEO, Oleg Vornik, and two other directors dumped all their shares in the company.
It remains unknown when they triggered their DroneShield share sales, but concerns remain that it could have been on Monday, right after that erroneous duplicate announcement; HotCopper doesn’t allege criminality.
Then, only yesterday, the DroneShield U.S. CEO walked out the door, out of the blue, sending the price down further. And now on Thursday, the ASX has been told its concerns around directors’ share sales are “hypothetical.”
It’s quite a string of events, and it’s something that even hardened market watchers have been persuaded to comment on. Many of them HotCopper users, where ire towards the company from its massive retail shareholder base remains palpable.
The big question is: With the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces both turning to fibre-optic cable-tethered drones that can’t be jammed in quite recent history, is Droneshield’s flagship technology now outdated? And is that why directors sold all their shares while the going was good as can be? That remains to be seen. But it’s an explanation that doesn’t necessarily reek of tin foil.
One thing’s certain: Shorter look like they’ve got an appetite for DRO bisque again.
DRO last traded at $1.89/sh.
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