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Technology Stocks : Research Frontiers (REFR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: N. Dixon who wrote (5271)	4/14/2004 5:41:04 PM
From: Edscharp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50536

Nancy, "...that but for an ill-advised short position, this stock would be much higher than quintuple the current price right now.." I don't agree with you. I have seen countless times how developmental companies rise with hype and fall on dashed expectations. My guess is that About 90% of the time you can count upon a developmental company to hit major snags with financing, r&d, proof-of-performance issues, production, infrastructure, etc. There are more than a few investors who play these up and downs successfully. I don't doubt for a moment that many short-traders have made money from playing REFR. How ill-advised is that? It is strictly an issue of timing. If those players are caught with a short position on the day that REFR announces significant revenues then "ill-advised" will be an accurate description, but that day hasn't come yet. You're suggesting that REFR should be currently worth $30-$40 per share. But honestly, traditional valuations simply don't support your view. Market value is a mix of current book value, perceived future earnings and market confidence. REFR has not earned it yet. Obviously, you are basing your belief upon your expectation that spd technology is sound, robust and is on the verge of bursting out into the market place with inevitable reverberations that will circle the globe. To you $40 is probably a bargain. My point is that it's not a perceived bargain to the average investor, even without the short traders. Most investors look at hard cold facts. They are from Missouri. They want proof of concept. I don't blame them. The vast majority of new technologies fall by the wayside and few people have the expertise to determine which companies will fail and which will succeed. Why didn't you buy Xerox when it was a $1 per share and somebody came up with the ridiculous idea of making a copier machine for the office? I don't know if you remember the early copier machines, but I do. They were large and expensive for their time. They required that you feed the original document in the machine along with a special piece of copy paper. This was during a time when everybody could type, and carbon and onion-skin paper were cheap. Even back then the ultimate success of their machine was not so clear. The truth is that the truly radical technologies that succeed are not always recognized early on. People have always been this way and will always be this way. I think it's incredibly misleading and unhelpful for you to suggest that the company currently has a fair valuation of $30-$40. It only worth that from your unique perspective, and has nothing to do with the reality of the moment.