Catching Up

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you have realized that your regular reading has been interrupted for the last two months. I have been negligent, I admit, and I beg your forgiveness. My excuse: after 10 years of supporting myself as an analyst/consultant I have finally found a real job. I am now teaching in the Biology Dept. of Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) in Murfreesboro, TN, located conveniently about 20 minutes from my house. It is also the school from which my wife Sally hopes to graduate, after 10+ years of being a part-time student. Although I have been distracted by the pressures of working regular hours, I hope to continue this blog, albeit at perhaps at occasionally protracted intervals.

I teach an MTSU graduate class called Issues in Biotechnology in which we tour local biotech firms and they give us real world problems for my band of young consultants to solve. This is free brainpower folks; if you’re in the Nashville area and you want some help, e-mail me at sedwards@mtsu.edu. I also teach undergraduate Anatomy and Physiology, a huge class involving nursing and pharmacology majors that pretty much pays the bills for the Biology Dept.

Nanotechnology 2006

On September 26th, I gave a presentation called Nanotech-Enabled Biosensors at Nanotechnology 2006, a conference held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. This is an annual conference organized by Raj Bawa, President of Bawa Biotechnology Consulting. The conference is sort of a homecoming event for Rensselaer alumni, of which Raj is one.

The highlight of the event, in my opinion, was a humorous talk by Nobel prize winner Ivar Giaever, a biophysicist, who is also the founder of Applied Physics, Inc., about the perils of establishing a new tech enterprise. Two of Giaver’s lines: 1) Conventional wisdom states that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a footpath to your door—unfortunately, this is absolutely false. 2) Conventional wisdom states that good scientists make lousy businessmen—unfortunately, this is absolutely true.

Afterwards, I had the pleasure of standing around at the reception with Giaever and a strange inventor-type named Ford Oxaal. After establishing that we all shared a Norwegian heritage (my real patronymic should be Iversen), we discussed ways of perfecting Oxaal’s latest invention, a 360 degree camera. Oxaal was trying to increase the resolution through the use of nanotube pinholes, while making the camera addressable by satellite. I think Giaever and I convinced him that you couldn’t efficiently use a pinhole smaller than the wavelength of visible light. Whatever, the conversation was a success, since I managed to sell a copy of my book, The Nanotech Pioneers, to Ford.

The Edwards Real Nanotech Index

As the Dow has marched to 12,000, the Edwards Real Nanotech Index (ERNI) has failed to follow suit. In fact, it is languishing about 5% below its initial price from February of this year.

There are some exceptions. NVE Corp. has gained over 100% in these last eight months. Most of that gain has come over speculation that NVE will realize royalties from Freescale Semiconductor’s magnetic RAM chips. This is an old story that has flared several times before. So far, there is no indication that Freescale intends to divvy up any of its profits to NVE. On the other hand, NVE is profitable and isgrowing its revenues handsomely on its own spintronics products. But it’s probably ahead of itself here. I urge caution.

Raymor is up over 90%. This sounds terrific, but it has actually plunged in value over the last several months. This is a very small, very volatile company based in Montreal.

Harris & Harris is down slightly over the last eight months, but this represents a large appreciation $13 a share over its low of around $9.00.

At any rate, conventional wisdom holds that large cap companies will outperform over small caps for the time being. I think that is probably true until the end of the year. Based on enormous political and other changes, I confidently predict that 2007 will be entirely unpredictable.

(click to expand)