Neonode Closed Tuesday Up 5.35%; VP Finance Says 'Shorts Taking Break'

shares jumped 5.35 percent following Tuesday's close after loosing nearly half its value since March. "Maybe the shorts are taking a break," said Vice President of Finance Daniel Gelbtuch. Neonode, which develops and licenses optical sensing technology for printers and other devices, has 11.66 million of its nearly 38 million shares held as short interest. Shares hit a one-year low of $3.91 on May 12, after posting a first-quarter net loss of $0.11 per share; Wall Street expected a loss of $0.08 per share. Revenue of $1 million was short of the consensus by about $200,000. "The negativity on everything is very high," said Gelbtuch, noting that nonetheless the company received its first royalty check from

earlier this week for Neonode's so-called Touch technology in HP printers. "We've been a story stock for the past two years and now we're getting proof of success, and people are blowing out of the stock, or shorting it to hell," said Gelbtuch. "It's ironic." Neonode looked like it had a bright future two years ago, manufacturing a key interface for

Kindle. But Amazon suddenly withdrew the business, taking half of Neonode's revenue with it. The company is now emphasizing its business with HP, in the works since 2012 and only now producing revenue. Perhaps of interest, Amazon appears in notes to the company's most recent first-quarter financial statement accounting for 15 percent of its accounts receivables. The company has made no announcements regarding new business with Amazon, and in its report for the period ended December 31, Amazon didn't appear in the note. Neonode last week closed a $10 million private placement at $4 per share and a warrant for 2.5 million shares at $5.09 per share for a potential additional $12.7 million. Total cash now stands at $15 million. During the first quarter, cash burn was $875 million per month. With HP deal finally producing, "that burn is going to get smaller and smaller and flip to profitability," said Gelbtuch, although he declined to offer a specific financial outlook. Shares of Neonode are trading around $3.86 in Wednesday's session, down about two percent.