45%....75%....30%...., page-14

It is true that Vmoto has had a chequered history, but I feel that your take on the company is weighted too much to the negative.

I was recently doing some research into the year by year company sales of this company, with a focus on the 'receipts from customers' figure in the Annual Reports. I've listed the year by year figure taken from each annual report over a period of five years up to 2017 (the figure for 2017 is taken from the half yearly report, covering the first six month of last year).

	Year	Total
1	31 December, 2013	$27,835,244
2	31 December, 2014	$46,458,103
3	31 December, 2015	$50,062,921
4	31 December, 2016	$48,603,489
5	30 June, 2017 (six months)	$21,672,042

It is largely overlooked now, but back in 2014 and 2015 there was a great deal of enthusiasm for this stock, and if you look at the figures in the table above you can see why. The company receipts nearly doubled between 2013 and 2015.

Since the peak in 2015, they have fallen off somewhat, but the drop in sales would be better described as 'stalling' rather than 'slumping'.

It looks like the receipts from customers figure will be about 15% lower in 2017 compared to the peak in 2015, but keep in mind this is probably at least partly reflective of the fact that the company has been going through a transition period.

So between 2015 and 2017 the receipts figure has fallen by around 15%, but the share price drop in that same period has been in excess of 200%(...?).

I wouldn't say that the dip in sales is nothing to worry about, but I have some difficulty seeing this as a disaster. Given China's ageing population, the implementation of stricter rules on the use of two-wheelers by many regional governments in that country, as well as the increasing competition, in some ways I am surprised that their sales have held up as well as they have over the past couple of years.

It is worth asking the question, why did Vmoto's sales start to struggle from 2015 onwards?. There are probably a few factors at play, but I think the biggest one could be the slump in the oil price. The oil price crashed in late 2014, and by fell another fell 30% or so in 2015.

I see Vmoto as a sort of 'green oil' stock. I am optimistic about the oil price over the long term, but I also increasingly feel that many of the major economic powers of the world are probably going to be introducing a 'carbon tax' of some sort within the next decade, and as such I am becoming wary about oil stocks. It would seem to me that investing in oil stocks may not be the best way to get exposure to a rise in the oil price over the long term.

If the assumption that Vmoto's fortunes are heavily influenced by movements in the price of oil is indeed accurate, it would follow that the surge in the oil price over the past few months should provide the company with a boost this year.