Stock-Trak Group (OTCB: STKG) today released its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2008.
For the first quarter, the Company reported revenues of $959,327 up over 40% compared to $667,686 for the same period a year earlier. The Company’s gross profit for the first quarter was $779,738 reflecting a gross margin percentage in excess of 80% compared to 75% for the same period a year earlier. The Company showed a net loss of $1,186,427 down from $2,493,559 recorded in the same quarter in the previous year. The net loss for the quarter was largely comprised of non cash items including depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation and the value of shares issued for services received. The Company’s net loss for the first quarter, before such items, amounted to approximately $608,000. Stock-Trak’s net cash position decreased by $241,000 during the quarter while net cash used in operations was $485,055. The Company ended the quarter with $2,924,189 in cash or cash equivalents.
“The Company continues to make solid progress in key segments of the business,” said Rory Olson, Stock-Trak Group’s Chief Executive Officer. “The Wall Street Survivor contest portal grew at a significant pace and continued to retain and attract new advertisers, while the education segment maintained its steady performance.”
“We are pleased with the cash management and cost control mechanisms currently in place which allows us to adjust expense control in real time. We continue to diligently manage cash as our business ramps up,” Mr. Olson continued. “We have a healthy gross margin and as we develop more traction in our business segments and see revenue growth continue, we expect to see a direct impact on our overall profitability.”
As was previously reported the Company saw the successful completion of another WallStreetSurvivor stock trading challenge (www.WallStreetSurvivor.com) in April, 2008. The contest attracted 34,000 new registrants, up by 35% from the previous contest, and generated in excess of 13.5 million pageviews which was up by 65% from the previous contest.
“The Survivor portal continues to show solid performance. It generated over 33 million ad impressions which is the basis for our model,” said Mr. Olson. “The contest saw the retention of existing advertisers as well as the addition of new ones thereby demonstrating the value inherent in our business model. With the recent launch of V.2.0 of our survivor platform and the infinite improvement over its predecessor, we fully expect that performance will continue to improve throughout the year.”
New V.2.0 site features include:
- Buddy Lists which will allow the Survivor to invite friends and family to a personalized “buddy” leaderboard and allow Survivors to track performance in relation to his or her “buddies.”
- Profile Pages where every Survivor gets a personalized profile page that displays their most recent trades, their Buddy list, a Guest Book and many other features designed to enhance the sites social networking environment.
- Starter Stock Portfolios allow Survivors with little or no experience to “get in the game” by selecting from a series of pre-populated portfolios which the Survivor can then modify as they wish.
- Dashboard Overview has been enhanced to allow the Survivor even greater visibility into the make up of the portfolio and its relative overall performance.
- Video News Feeds provide the Survivor a vast library of video feeds ranging from breaking market news to tutorial and educational content.
- Platform Upgrade designed to offer Stock-Trak clients greater scalability and extensibility, and to bring Survivors into an even greater “real-life” simulation environment.
About Stock-Trak Group, Inc.
Stock-Trak Group, Inc, in existence since 1990, is a leading global provider of web-based stock market simulation and training products. Stock-Trak Group has three office locations in Montreal, Quebec; Mississauga, Ontario and Atlanta, Georgia and is divided into two distinct business units. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Stock-Trak, Stock-Trak Group targets the academic and financial services markets with proprietary stock market simulation and training tools. Wall Street Survivor, part of Stock-Trak Group's consumer division, targets online investing, trading and game enthusiasts with a market leading web 2.0 investment-oriented educational simulation and contest web site while replicating the real world stock market experience without the risk. Our media division is a full service marketing firm that operates an advertising based network of outdoor multimedia L.E.D. display screens.
Important Information about Forward-Looking Statements: All statements in this news release other than statements of historical facts are forward-looking statements which contain our current expectations about our future results. Forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties. We have attempted to identify any forward-looking statements by using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "could," "expects," "intends," "may," "should" and other similar expressions. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in all of our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results, events or financial positions to differ materially from those included within the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, the availability of capital resources, our ability to execute our business plan, our ability to attract and retain customers and qualified personnel, customer acceptance and satisfaction with our event marketing services and proposed stock market simulation contest, changes in applicable regulatory actions, changes in the securities or capital markets, statements of assumption underlying any of the foregoing, and other factors disclosed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007 and other filings with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to disclose any revision to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.
Contacts:
Rory Olson, 1-514-871-2222
Web
site: http://www.StockTrak.com
