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Stockchase Insights
3D Systems
DDD-N
RISKY
Mar 22, 2024
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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This company really had to change their strategy from focusing on retail buyers, to more industrial and business based. That has been successful, but it looks like it is going to take some time. Also, there have been new players coming into the market that are increasingly competitive. There is a lot of uncertainty around 3-D printing in general, and who is going to be the ultimate buyer. Also, if Hewlett-Packard (HPQ-N) enters the market, that is definitely going to hurt this company. There is just too much risk and uncertainty.
3-D printing is effectively the idea where if you need a new kidney, someone can go and print it for you. The whole idea of being able to print products and doing it quite cheaply is quite an interesting one. Longer-term, it really opens up the question of location of factories. Rather than having to be located in certain areas, can they be located near the consumer? The promise of 3-D is very, very good. However, the hype got way ahead of itself. He would like to see this company be a part of something else, which would make the promise of 3-D printing open up and be more accepted. He wouldn’t buy this here.
Very recently had a spike in the price. It has broken out through a resistance level, meaning there should be incremental buyers here, probably up into the $30-$35 level. Ultimately, this is still very much of a “show me” story to him. It is extremely volatile, so it doesn’t really fit what he does.
DDD has been on a pretty steady downward trend since 2022 and is down 55% over the last year. Since 2021, DDD has seen revenues declining along with swinging to a net loss that became worse from 2022 to 2023. 3D printing has been around for quite a while now and it has very relevant applications in the manufacturing industry. Looking at the broader industry, there a 3D printing ETF ticker PRNT which has historically been flat outside of a big jump in 2021. 3D printing is definitely innovative and unique, but we are skeptical if the industry will ever take off from an investment standpoint as once expected. We are not sure on what the exact applications with AI would look like and there has not been any word on this as of yet.
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