Nanotech Excitement Boosts Wrong Stock

from the prefix-investing dept

Back during the bubble years, companies were seeing their stock prices shoot up if they simply added an "e-" prefix to their name and/or a ".com" to the end. Call it "prefix investing." There were also more than a few stories of companies having their stock prices driven up after a similarly named company had some good news happen. This is a sign that there are a lot of greedy, but unsophisticated investors dumping lots and lots of dough into the market. It appears to be happening again. These days, it appears that the "hot" thing is nanotechnology (though, certain honest employees at many "nanotech" startups will admit that the "nano" part is a lot more marketing than reality). As such, everyone wants to have a "nano" prefix in their name. They won't get the NANO stock ticker symbol, though, as that's already held by a company named Nanometrics, who doesn't even do anything in the nanotechnology field, and has been around for 35 years. That hasn't stopped investors from piling on, though. Yesterday their stock got a huge boost, despite the fact that they didn't do anything special. There was this other company, Nanogen, that received a "nanotechnology patent" that excited investors - and it appears some of those investors were so "excited" that they didn't bother to check to make sure they were investing in the right company.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..