>> a Wild West of spin <<
Peter,
That article reminded me of this observation, stated less gently:
"The biotechnology stock group has acquired the worst -- the dirtiest -- reputation of any stock group in the science-and-technology sector. The futuristic appeal of the science underlying this technology has been exploited by stock marketeers peddling worthless paper, and by scientists peddling their academic and research credentials to nominal "scientific advisory boards" intended to dignify the issue of worthless paper. Public excitement about medicines that promise miracles has been transformed into private fortunes made in stocks without products, revenues, earnings, or scientific legitimacy. Be it up or down, biotech is now understood to be the red-light district of the NASDAQ exchange.
"The same paragraph could have been written about the railway mania in the English stock speculations of the nineteenth century, or about the incipient oil business in the twentieth. Biotechnology is the only major, transforming technology now in human prospect. It is in biotech that you should position, by the turn of the century, as much as 75% of capital earmarked for science-and-technology investments. It is a case of hold your nose and buy biotech."
This is from Michael Gianturco, How to Buy Technology Stocks (Boston, 1996), p. 143.
-- RCM |
