I remain positive on FLN, and I am taking the quiet period to mean the last management comments that growth has returned to previous tracks remain true.
Certainly, if growth was materially lower the management would be negligent if they didn't inform the market.
So I am seeing current price weakness as largely driven by EOFY tax loss selling and lack of excitement for FLN because nothing much has happened since the last quarterly.
I actually rate nothing much happening as very positive if marketplace revenue and user growth is back on track, especially given the actions FLN has taken to improve the quality of the marketplace.
And the Escrow.com API integrations should be coming along. I have been involved in similar projects for companies in the past - in theory, you could spin up a new payment API in a day or two - in practice it takes months to make sure the people in accounting can report the new payment type, and the people in support can handle questions, and the web guys integrate it properly. So I think the Escrow.com API will take a year or two to gain real numbers in the payment space. This is fine, as payments is a slow moving industry (I can still make payments by cheque, thats has worked for how many hundred years?) and a solid, reliable payment option for high value items is valuable. Escrow.com leads in this market and is the presumptive market leader as things like letters of credit fade into history.
And FLN stands to benefit from increasing employment. The USA has very full employment just now. Do you think in those conditions it will be easy to find a good programmer or web developer? FLN brings global resources to bear on locally constrained markets, so will benefit if unemployment remains low. We saw the GFC drive supply in the freelancer space as talented people were let go, and went in to contracting.
Now we will see the opposite - what happens when employers want more staff but can't easily find them.
In the past, this meant higher wages - while I think that is likely in a small way, I suspect many budget conscious employers will also look to solutions like FLN. After all, that is how WIPRO and Infosys got started last time first world wages were high in the dotcom bubble.
A repeat this time will mean sharply increasing revenue for FLN.
Very comfortable with this investment.
FLN Price at posting:
40.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
