Yahoo Finance Here's Why We're Watching ZincX Resources's (CVE:ZNX) Cash Burn Situation
Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether ZincX Resources (CVE:ZNX) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
See our latest analysis for ZincX Resources
Does ZincX Resources Have A Long Cash Runway?
A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. ZincX Resources has such a small amount of debt that we'll set it aside, and focus on the CA$2.8m in cash it held at March 2020. Importantly, its cash burn was CA$2.4m over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of around 14 months as of March 2020. That's not too bad, but it's fair to say the end of the cash runway is in sight, unless cash burn reduces drastically. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Is ZincX Resources's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Because ZincX Resources isn't currently generating revenue, we consider it an early-stage business. Nonetheless, we can still examine its cash burn trajectory as part of our assessment of its cash burn situation. Even though it doesn't get us excited, the 40% reduction in cash burn year on year does suggest the company can continue operating for quite some time. ZincX Resources makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.
How Easily Can ZincX Resources Raise Cash?
Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for ZincX Resources 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 looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn.
Since it has a market capitalisation of CA$15m, ZincX Resources's CA$2.4m in cash burn equates to about 16% of its market value. Given that situation, it's fair to say the company wouldn't have much trouble raising more cash for growth, but shareholders would be somewhat diluted.
So, Should We Worry About ZincX Resources's Cash Burn?
ZincX Resources appears to be in pretty good health when it comes to its cash burn situation. One the one hand we have its solid cash burn relative to its market cap, while on the other it can also boast very strong cash burn reduction. Even though we don't think it has a problem with its cash burn, the analysis we've done in this article does suggest that shareholders should give some careful thought to the potential cost of raising more money in the future. On another note, ZincX Resources has 3 warning signs (and 1 which is potentially serious) we think you should know about.
Of course ZincX Resources may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.
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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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
