Fight!

There’s nothing like a good scrap, and the current one is between nanotechnology.com (with whom we have had the odd run in) and Lux Research. The excellent Steve Edwards takes Lux to task over their Exchange Traded nanotech Fund. We particularly enjoyed his comments on the inclusion of General Motors.

We actually agree with Steve that most of these so called ‘nano’ companies derive little of their income from anything nano related, or ever will. One of the primary reasons that funds include the blue chips is that otherwise the fund would be made up of the usual bunch of non exchange traded small cap nanotech players whose stock price can yo yo between a few cents and a few dollars on tiny volumes. There are also issues of compliance discussed here.

While the suggestion that investors in ‘nano’ should look at Harris and Harris (who do seem to have figured out how to make some money out of nanotech by doing something other than bellowing ever louder about new industrial revolutions), we would question whether anyone should be investing directly in nanotechnologies at all? It seems obvious to most that the effect of nanotechnologies will mostly be indirect, although widespread. As such there are plenty of opportunities available, but very few of them are as obvious as a company having a ‘nano’ in its name or being included in these type of funds.