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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: the hube who wrote (2882)	3/12/1998 12:42:00 AM
From: Allen Benn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10309

Have you been following the recent action (announcements, trading volume increases and rising price) of Irvine Sensors, and if so, do you feel it now meets your investment criteria? I have IRSN on a watch list, but I stopped noticing much if anything about it until you woke me up just now. As you know, the company can't seem to get past the development stage, and has consumed tons of early investor money. Recently announced deals may have been enough to move the stock, possibly because people close to the company realize the deals presage better things to come. I doubt the recent move in the stock price was appreciated by the gaggle of investors who finally capitulated and agreed to sell all their holdings in a special offering around the end of January, apparently for less than half the price a month or so later. Companies have been sued for far less. IRSN is a value play in an exciting emerging technology, perhaps at that exquisite point when past investments and struggles are starting to pay off. Even so, I would need to have answered a laundry list of questions before I would be comfortable investing in the company. There is one thing that always applies in situations like this. The first order of business for small companies struggling to bring exotic technology to the marketplace is survival, and this becomes the first order of concern for the seasoned investor. Unfortunately, by any measure, IRSN is not assured of surviving. The company has been forced to pay off bank loans with cheap equity offerings just to keep the ball rolling, which for many companies is the start of a downward spiral that can't be stopped. I would suggest that anyone eyeing this company as offering a huge opportunity for extraordinary gain, should visit the company and kick the tires before buying. Traders, on the other hand, may jump all over the stock--just because the stock is active and the price is moving. Meanwhile, MEMS continues to be a compelling story, one I am giving lots of attention. Allen