Bear Stearns Says NanoBubble Yet to be Blown

In a recent Barron's interview, Francois Trahan, Bear Stearns' chief investment strategist, said the next hot areas (after the housing bubble bursts) to look at for the next major "bubble" include China, nanotechnology, water purification, genomics, voice recognition, homeland security, pandemic treatments and emerging markets.

Looking a year or two down the road, he said, "It's never too early to start thinking about where money will flow once we see another wave of easy credit."

Let's look at this. Bear Stearns is a great, respected, risk-taking, entreprenuerial firm.

China and emerging markets? Quite possible . . . again . . . but a bit of "been there; done that."

Voice recognition - - nanotechnology may have some impact and related stocks may rally sharply, but this is too small a space to support any kind of bubble that you or I would note in the history of finance.

Genomics, pandemic treatments, homeland security, water purification and nanotechnology??? Nanotech is likely to impact ALL of these in a significant way.

I think what Trahan is really saying is that Nanotechnology is the next major Bubble, that it will START to inflate in the next 30 months (mid-2006 to end of 2008) and that is exactly what I've been saying since early 2002!

The guy's obviously a blooming genius.