Dr. Whale: I'm currently following what's known as the energy technology industry. For me, being in Canada, that means covering companies like Ballard Power Systems (BLDP), Stuart Energy Systems (HHO:TSE), and Westport Innovations (WPT:TSE). These are companies that work in the fuel cell space, alternative fuels or alternative energy conversion. Basically, this is the industrial products sector, but it has a technology flavor to it because of the advanced nature of the devices that the companies are developing.
TWST: What has gone on in this market segment over the past year or so?
Dr. Whale: A lot has been happening. A lot of companies went public at
the height of the tech bubble a few years ago, except for some of the
leaders like Ballard Power, which has been around longer. But since
then, in terms of market perspective, they've all lost a lot of value.
What's interesting about that is that there's not a correlation between
the accomplishments that the companies have made relative to their
timelines to commercialization. Typically, a technology company's share
price will end up improving as it gets closer to commercialization
because there's less risk involved with getting there. The exact
opposite has happened, mostly because of what I think is a supply and
demand issue. There are a lot of these stocks out there, and there's
just no investor appetite for them, so as a result they're trading down
in some cases below their cash value per share. Yet, at the same time,
they're actually making progress on their publicly stated aims. So
investors are finding it confusing in that sense.
Tickers included in this excerpt: BLDP, CUM, EFL:TSE, FCT:V, GBTOF, HHO:TSE, HPOW, HYGS, PLUG, UTX, WPT:TSE
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