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Teeka Tiwari’s “Next Breakthrough” to Go Public?

What's the stock teased by Mega Trends as the next boomer from the researchers who made Apple and Microsoft's fortunes possible?

The Palm Beach Letter folks have been shaking the tree for new subscribers to Teeka Tiwari’s Mega Trends, and the latest ad is generating a bit of buzz in Gumshoedom … quite a few questions so far this week.

And I don’t blame ’em — it sounds kind of cool. And with everyone chattering about the “unveiling” of the Apple Watch today, everyone’s probably wondering what the “next big thing” is… so let’s see what Teeka Tiwari’s idea is.

The start catches your eye, and will give a big fat hint to those who have paid attention to the history of technology…

“I’ve shown the map above to dozens of the most successful investors I know…

“They were all shocked that three of the biggest breakthroughs of our time came out of this one little place…

“Apple swiped the key technologies for the first Macintosh personal computer from this building…

“Microsoft’s Word and Windows products were the direct result of work done on this property…

“And the man behind Adobe Systems, maker of the Adobe Reader and PDF, got his start in this modest set of offices.

“In this video, I’ll tell you about this obscure lab. It’s just three miles off the 280 Freeway in California.

“And according to Forbes, ‘Technology companies… have collectively realized trillions of dollars in revenues and tens of trillions in market value because of [this lab].'”

So that’s obviously a reference to Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, usually called Xerox PARC, the advanced research center started by Xerox (XRX) as a places to design the “office of the future” 45 years ago, and where the graphical interface, computer mouse, and many other now-commonplace technologies were first pioneered. Xerox, as you may have noticed, didn’t benefit very directly from those advances designed by their engineers (though they certainly benefited from some — laser printing was developed at PARC, too, along with dozens of other technologies and standards that are either core to our technological lives or were stepping stones to reaching the current standards.

PARC is still owned by Xerox, though it’s now an independent subsidiary corporation and they do a lot of contracted R&D for other companies — so is Tiwari just suggesting that we buy shares of XRX? Let’s keep digging through the spiel…

“You see, this lab is working on the next major tech breakthrough.

“It’s almost ready to go public… and only one company holds the key patent.

“We could be looking at the next Apple or Microsoft.

“The MIT Technology Review says this invention ‘could revolutionize the way electronics are made.’

“This advanced technology is at the center of an industry one major tech CEO says will be worth ‘$19 trillion by 2020.'”

That is indeed a Xerox PARC technology (though they’re not the only ones working on this kind of thing), a flexible and potentially low-cost way of making chips that are partially “printed” — which would, at least conceptually, be a big boon for the widely anticipated “Internet of Things” wave of interconnected devices… if you can make the chips flexible and out of lots of different materials, and cheap, then the number of things that can be “smart” increases substantially.

The “$19 trillion” number is the one that’s widely used for the “Internet of Things” — I think the number originally came from Cisco (CSCO) CEO John Chambers in a presentation a little over a year ago (Cisco is very focused, understandably, on the Internet of Things). The “revolutionize” quote is indeed from the MIT Technology Review in an article you can see here.

Then we get a bit more detail (and hype) from the ad…

“Current 3-D printers have one major flaw.

“They can only print a mold or replica of a solid object. A shirt, a hammer, a car door…

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“They haven’t been capable of printing objects with microchips or circuits—so-called ‘smart’ devices.

“What that means is, you can print a car door in your garage right now using a 3-D printer. But that car door isn’t actually complete…

“To add the computing equipment that’s standard in every modern car, you have to do it the old-fashioned way; install it after the door’s been made.

“There are no 3-D printers capable of manufacturing advanced electronics and embedding it inside an object.

“Until now…

“You see, scientists in this Pentagon-sponsored lab in California have created the most advanced 3-D printing technology to date.

“As a result, you could be printing smart devices in your own home or business very soon.”

Hmmm… the nice thing about “very soon?” It’s a phrase that sounds compelling and immediate, but it doesn’t have a specific (or legal) definition.

More from the ad:

“With this special ink, a jet is added onto the 3-D printer that can print and place microchips exactly where they’re needed.

“Those microchips can be added to any kind of surface or material. You can literally put a computer in anything…

“As it is improved, this technology will get cheaper and cheaper. More people will have access to its incredible benefits.

“The influence on intelligence, science, business, and politics will be massive.

“Literally everything you own will have a ‘smart’ device inside it.

“As I’ll show you in a moment, there’s a chance at once-in-a-lifetime profits if you’re ahead of the trend.”

Well, on this particular technology you’re well ahead of any “trend” — this is still a R&D project, and it’s not going to be in a commercial 3D printer churning out plastic gizmos with embedded microchips anytime soon, though that is the envisioned future by these engineers. Is this really an investable idea?

And then we get to the part where it becomes clear that Tiwari is probably not talking about Xerox stock… he describes how the technologies pioneered at PARC, like the mouse and even the Internet (they deserve at least partial credit for Ethernet) created titans when those products were commercialized, helping to build both Apple and Microsoft into multi-hundred-billion-dollar goliaths. Which makes you wonder about the lack of commercial vision at Xerox in the 1970s and 80s as they focused on their cash-cow copying business, but that ship has sailed (according to YCharts, XRX shares — had you bought them in 1972 a couple years after PARC opened — would have given you a total return, over 43 years, of 11.5%. Not 11.5% a year, but 11.5% in total — including dividends).

More from the ad:

“This silver ink’s ability to print electronic devices on any surface could have the same impact on the tech world as those three titans…

“The Matadero lab itself recently released an internal memo about the potential of this device:

‘The market for flexible, printed, and organic large-area electronics is rapidly growing. Currently estimated at over $1 billion, the global market is expected to increase to a $45 billion market by 2016.’

“One company has the patent on this technology and works in partnership with the Matadero lab.

“Investors who get in now before it goes to the mass market could make a fortune…”

Ah… so who is that “one company” with the patent on this technology? More from the pitch:

“Sharp investors can see the potential profits coming very soon… many of them are positioning themselves for major gains from the IoT.

  • Billionaire Julian Robertson, the retired former head of the Tiger Management hedge fund, is heavily invested in the IoT, as is his former firm.
  • Goldman Sachs senior analyst Simona Jankowski says it’s the lucrative ‘third wave of the Internet’…
  • Other billionaire hedge fund managers like Chuck Royce, Jim Simons, and Dmitry Balyasny are also betting big on the Internet of Things.

“It’s clear. This is truly the next huge trend in technology…

“And you could be at the forefront as an investor…”

Ah, the allure of being “at the forefront” … finally, something to talk about at that next cocktail party! Tiwari doesn’t actually say that those billionaire investors are buying the same stock he’s talking about, and clues are thin on the ground for that one, this is about all he says…

“And, most importantly, I’ll share the name of the only company that holds a patent on this printable electronics breakthrough.

“It’s a publicly traded company and its share price could go through the roof over the next few years, just like Apple (4,364%) and Microsoft (59,302%) did.”

So… we can’t be 100% certain, given the vagueness of the clues, but the Thinkolator has an answer that’s a good match: The little Norwegian company Thin Film Electronics. They’ve filed to establish an ADR Program in the US, which should make trading the stock a bit more viable for US investors, but it’s not actually going to get a US listing or, probably, trade in high volume — the home listing is at ticker THIN in Oslo, the new sponsored 1:10 ADR (meaning each US ADR equals ten shares in Norway) is TFECY, but I haven’t seen it trade at all since it was introduced last week, and the current over the counter ticker in the US, which does trade at least a few thousand dollars a day, is TFECF.

Thin Film has a market capitalization of about $400 million, and the shares in the US have recently traded pretty close to their fair value in Norway (last price was about 6 Norwegian Krone, which is about 75 cents). They do have some patented developments in thin film electronics, ranging from their current products in the “smart label” category through to more advanced ideas that they’re working to commercialize with Xerox and others — with the idea now being that they hope to get other companies to do the heavy lifting when it comes to building manufacturing plants and the like. There is some potential for “Internet of Things” applications, to be sure, and they do have companies trying to the technology in somewhat connected products that use NFC — like the “smart bottle” from Diageo that was announced last week… but I have no idea how fast they can ramp up to getting to some kind of commercial scale. They’re nowhere near that point now, from what I can tell, with most of their revenue still coming from R&D collaborations or projects in 2014 (you can see their preliminary Q4 report press release here, or the presentation here).

They’ve been collaborating with Xerox and PARC for years (they announced a partnership to work on smart printed labels back in 2012, for example), and Xerox is one of the “scale up” partners they seem most focused on for early work in what are effectively “smart labels” that either provide more information (like temperature), connect to customers or devices, or provide authentication/security.

And that’s about all I can tell you in my few minutes looking at Thin Film — it looks really interesting, they are growing revenue very, very fast… but the revenue level is still largely trivial and the potential for profit seems fairly far off unless there are large partnership revenues baked in that I’m not seeing in my first glance, so it seems likely that this is all about the future… betting that Thin Film’s technologies and standards will become, well, standard in the expanding “smart label” part of the “Internet of Things” trend. Speculative, to be sure, and interesting… and beyond that, well, it’s your money so you can make the call. Let us know what you think with a comment below.

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👍 21718
bradyoung
bradyoung
March 9, 2015 6:17 pm

ahh…XRX is at $13.26 and IBM is at $160.77.
Which one did you say was cheaper?

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Ronnie Silva
Member
Ronnie Silva
November 28, 2015 10:49 pm

I knew what you meant ..PE or value wise. A cheaper $$ price can still be overpriced by other definitions or if earnings/growth don’t support the price. a $50 stock is cheaper than I B M , but not if that stock’s true value is $20

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Renrah
Renrah
March 14, 2015 9:13 pm
Reply to  bradyoung

he’s looking at PE is my guess which makes IBM cheaper

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Rusty Brown in Canada
Member
Rusty Brown in Canada
March 15, 2015 11:08 am

An important distinction that seems to require reiteration on a regular basis.

leskellum
March 9, 2015 4:01 pm

Travis, could you also put your Thinkolator to work on Money Map Press new tease: Special opportunity to purchase patent stakes in a disruptive new medical technology now under $10.00. Sales projected to grow 63,000% and create $7 trillion by 2017. Thanks for your great service.

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John Broughton
Member
John Broughton
March 9, 2015 4:52 pm

There is a world of difference between a specialized 3-D printer, for thin film electronics, and 3-D printers that produce solid objects. For one thing, the first kind almost certainly requires clean-room conditions. So just adding a special jet onto existing 3-D printers isn’t enough.

There’s another problem with the idea of embedding electronics into 3-D printing: things like car doors can’t be economically made using 3-D printing – it’s far cheaper to use existing technologies. When car doors are printed, it’s either for prototyping (a small market) or for customization (see, for example, Local Motors), a similarly small market.

So huge dollar IoT market of the future is basically about producing very small electronic devices. Thin film printing may turn out to be the cheapest technology for that. But the fact that it is 3-D in an of itself isn’t an advantage – there are obviously non-3-D technologies that can be used to make very small electronics. And (to repeat myself) those very small electronics are almost certainly going to be manually (or mechanically) embedded into things that that weren’t 3-D printing, because the extra cost of embedding is far cheaper than printing things entirely by 3-D, assuming its possible to put together (and run, in production mode, and maintain) a unified 3-D printer.

leskellum
March 9, 2015 4:53 pm

Not sure but they are using the new tease of writing 500 checks for $2000.00 for members who want to get involved in purchasing the patent stakes of this new disruptive medical technology. They didn’t mention the ” one device to end all diseases” and I was hoping you might have gotten this new tease with more information.

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gregralphjohn
Member
gregralphjohn
March 9, 2015 6:56 pm
Reply to  leskellum

The Money Morning/Map people are selling a Radical Technology Profits newsletter for $4000. Only 500 subscribers are allowed in, and get a check for $2000 back. Or they can apply the $2000 to the membership for “only” $1950 (no explanation of where the $50 goes) and Money M/M has a million to fund their newsletter. You can waste your check on whatever you want, or, you can turn it around and buy their recommended stock, which is the MEMS maker set to make billions.

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Jim Leavenworth
Jim Leavenworth
March 9, 2015 7:58 pm
Reply to  gregralphjohn

From the way these offers are filling my in box I’d say a fair number of hucksters are about to take a bath from overestimating the credulity of the public. First time for everything.

Myron Martin
Irregular
March 10, 2015 2:28 pm
Reply to  gregralphjohn

This is just another twist on the ages old copywriter trick of building value to ridiculous levels, which hardly anyone ever pays, and then selling you a subscription at a heavily discounted price. This slight of hand simply means that if you are gullible enough to pay $4000. for the subscription, you will get a check back for $2000. when you could just sign up for the discounted price of $1950. and unless you are an investor with millions, I doubt if it is even worth that. Point being it is just a “gimmick” they are NOT as advertised investing a million in this program, they are just enticing people to buy a subscription that is still overpriced. Their supposed “investment” is just a copywriters created illusion.

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hedy1234
hedy1234
March 9, 2015 5:26 pm

Thin Film is not the company. I will not offer the answer since it is a paid subscription but I will tell you if you guess correctly

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john
Member
john
March 9, 2015 11:47 pm
Reply to  hedy1234

Like you’re keeping a big secret…don’t heed it..:-)

Al
March 30, 2015 8:57 pm
Reply to  hedy1234

Is it Cabot Corp?

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gard
Guest
June 21, 2015 10:55 am
Reply to  hedy1234

Thanks Howard, Thin according to their site, is making thin film memory products and plans to ram up production with Xerox by the end of the year. And Rfi lables like Diego/Johnnie Walker. I didn’t see anything about 3D or ink jet printing. They use a roll to roll printing process. I believe this company is on a roll and will buy stock come Monday.
I wonder who the teased company really is, and hope to find out soon

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vivian lewis
March 9, 2015 6:59 pm

You won’t believe it but last Friday a contributor to http://www.global-investing.com tipped a really easy way to own a modest amount of Thin Film along with other great Norse stocks. So we actually beat the promotion. We reprinted an article by Gen. Joe Shaefer (USAF-ret), a fund manager (Stamford Mgm) and editor (Investor’s Edge), with permission of course. (I always given Gen. Shaefer full credit because I don’t want him to bomb my Manhattan office building, a possible punishment for plagiarizing.)
I only just got a confirmation from Joe that our NORW exchange-traded fund does hold a modest amount of TFECF. Which I agree with Travis is the stock being bulled up.
I also personally own Xerox too but as it is a US share I do not write about it.
We also had our own private Nordic biotech boost last week about a stock which neither of the docs who contribute to this site ever mentioned, I think. It has a silly name, Bavarian Nordic, and is Danish with a rather illiquid ADR. It signed a breakthrough deal with lots of loot and milestones for its prostate cancer jab with Bristol Myers Squibb, which I also own (I told readers of this site why some months ago.)

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jimmy jasperino
Member
jimmy jasperino
March 10, 2015 4:50 am

What is your take on micro cap firm Microvision (mvis)?
They make miniature, laser-based projectors and retinal scan HUDs (heads up displays, as in computer).
They are supposedly ready to really take off into the stratosphere after more than a decade of trying to transfer their highly-patented R&D, into commercial, high volume production and market readiness. They finally seem to have turned that corner, but the firm is quite tight lipped about specifics due to its f100 and f500 early development confidentiality. I hung on to shares purchased way back in 2006 that ha
ve since been heavily dilluted by reverse splits. However, based on apparent current mass commercialization about to unfold, I am back to buying, having accumulated about 10,000 shares (including 40% via
options). This firm has a very polarized following of cult-like followers/pumpers and hater type perpetual shorters. Supposedly, today’s conference call will confirm the breakout that their cutting edge technology has been working toward as the company itself has managed to cling to existence only by the skin of its teeth through it all. They have recently received licensing contracts and payments, royalty agreements, and component orders and payments, and early market sales through an obscure Celluon web retailer..small scale, but

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Vic
Member
Vic
May 5, 2020 7:29 am

Took off yesterday- 191 million shares trading. From 0.25c to $1.10 in a few days. They report on the 7th for 1st Qrt earnings. Why so much activity?

4geoff2
Member
4geoff2
March 10, 2015 9:08 am

Maybe we should all get together and send poor Howard a dollar or two, to ease his conscience. (But only if he relinqishes his high ground; after all, HE PAID for it)

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edski
Irregular
March 10, 2015 10:24 am
Reply to  4geoff2

Good for Howard! People don’t know how to work these days, whether physical or mental.

I applaud you Howard!

gard
Guest
June 21, 2015 10:59 am
Reply to  4geoff2

Ain’t fair and I hope you were joking. If you sleuth it out from the clues then it is fair game.
To have irregulars give away the teaser from a paid subscription, then it “ain’t” fair. Pay for what you get, and get what you pay for, no free ride. IMHO

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hedy1234
hedy1234
March 10, 2015 10:38 am

Geoffrey- I will not be bullied into changing my ethics. If its just a dollar or two why don’t you just pay for a subscription like the others did?
edski- Thanks for the support

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Keith Thompson
Keith Thompson
March 10, 2015 3:54 pm
Reply to  hedy1234

Yes Howard but you made sure to tell everyone you knew the name of the stock and that you would not be telling anyone unless they guessed. Ethics? sure, OK.

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hedy1234
hedy1234
March 10, 2015 8:14 pm

Keith- Your point is well taken. I actually thought about it before responding. In my mind, my options were to:
a. Remain silent and let folks potentially invest in a company that was not the one being profiled.
b. Just saying that I knew the answer was wrong and not elaborate.
c. Offer to confirm the correct answer if solved. I have done this in the past with Travis when he has solved or not solved other puzzles.
Everyone has to make their own bed…. Let he who is without… cast….

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arch1
March 11, 2015 5:25 am
Reply to  hedy1234

Could this possibly be Hanergy or the Guggenheim fund TAN that owns a large position?

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Chris
Chris
March 11, 2015 5:51 pm

Everything I’ve found researching this technology points to what Travis came up with. They seem to hold the key patents in this field.

“Analyst Interview – Thin Film Electronics
Thin Film Electronics (Thinfilm) owns key patents for printing rewritable, non-volatile memory and licenses technology from others to develop complete printed systems.

Tom Grady, analyst for Thinfilm, gives an overview of the business and describes some of the wide range of opportunities for printed electronics. He then talks about some of the key milestones to look out for over the coming 12-18 months.”

Thin Film Electronics ASA (Oslo, NO) has been issued patent number 8960558, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by VerticalNews editors.

The patent’s inventors are MacKenzie, J. Devin (San Carlos, CA); Cleeves, James Montague (Redwood City, CA); Pavate, Vik (San Mateo, CA); Gudeman, Christopher (Los Gatos, CA); Zurcher, Fabio (Brisbane, CA); Davis, Max (San Francisco, CA); Good, Dan (San Francisco, CA); Rockenberger, Joerg (Redwood City, CA).

This patent was filed on February 1, 2012 and was published online on February 24, 2015.

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Deborah Waroff
March 15, 2015 1:23 am

I have read that the emissions (nano particles, I believe) from 3-D printers, particularly of the home variety, are a danger to health. Sounds like the operator needs on clean room and the printer another. Could this matter to long-term health of this manufacturing area?

Mary
Guest
Mary
March 15, 2015 4:42 am

Stephen Petranek talks about a shoebox spectrometer. Do you know the company, its purpose is for NASA but expected to be available for Doctors use soon.

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chuck
Member
chuck
March 15, 2015 6:39 pm

Thin film again. Can’t believe that patents were issued as recently as cited. Thin film technology pretty much max’ed out in the late 1960s to early 1970s. — largely replaced by larger scale integrated circuits. Where is the examination of prior art at the PTO?

Al
March 28, 2015 5:29 pm

Is it Cabot Corp?

http://www.google.com/patents/US8334464

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pjwa
pjwa
March 31, 2015 2:17 am

This seems a good answer. Certainly Xerox is noted in their patent citations; conversely I note that Cabot is frequently cited in Xerox patents, particularly in the field of nano-ink.
However I also found several private companies are achieving a similar goal of printed circuits in 3D printers, notably Voxel8 out of Harvard, PragmatIC out of Cambridge Uni, Ceradrop (part of MGI Group) and Optomec. All appear to have developed some form 3D printing capability which can include integrated circuits, and all but PragmatIC have some form of printer available currently in the market.
Cabot has patented a process for applying an ink to achieve an imbedded circuit in 3D printing; others including Sun Chemical have created a suitable ink.
This is going to be an interesting marketplace.

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lodgeag
Member
lodgeag
April 9, 2015 6:27 am

Having read Teeka’s comments, as opposed to the copywriter’s, it seems the answer to Travis’s first question about what he is promoting might be ‘yes’.

Raj
Guest
Raj
April 28, 2015 4:19 am

Is this Changing Technologies Inc CHGT ??

Raj
Guest
Raj
April 28, 2015 4:22 am

Is this Changing Technologies Inc CHGT?

Side Question: Can anyone confirm when this teaser was published first?? I got to see this today but I guess its been running for last few months or so… the reason I am asking this because, if its been few months then someone who bought subscription already can validate the claims from Teeka Tiwari,,,

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Eddie zee
Member
Eddie zee
May 9, 2015 12:01 pm

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