This article was originally published on August 13, 2013, around the time this teaser ad pitch was first circulated. The ad is still largely the same today and is circulating heavily again, and it is clearly still teasing the same company, so we’re just re-posting this article for all our newer readers who have questions… without any updates or edits. The spiel about this “one device to end all disease” is now apparently being used to pitch both the $2,000 Radical Technology Profits newsletter and the $99 Nova-X Report, both helmed by Michael Robinson at Money Map Press, so you might have seen similar spiels come from either of those publications.
The stock teased is at very nearly the same price as it was two ago when we originally covered it (it was around $8.50 then, just over $9 now), and the story is more or less the same (though I haven’t checked the detailed progress of any of their operations) — revenue has fallen for five years in a row, but estimates have started to rise again for 2015 and 2016 so analysts think they will start to grow again. It now trades at a forward PE of 14 on 2016 earnings, and at about 22X expected 2015 earnings (though long term growth expectations among analysts remain very low, about 5%). The dividend amount remains unchanged at 10 cents/quarter, so they still carry an anticipated yield in the neighborhood of 4.3%, close to what it was a couple years ago.
—–from 8/15/13——-
Radical Technology Profits, edited by Michael Robinson over at Money Map Press, is one of the newsletters that, like Breakthrough Technology Alert or the many other competitors, aims to get in early on technology and biotech stories — and also like most of these letters, they pitch their ideas by selling a big picture story that weaves some little company’s product into a larger and more easily identified trend that sounds entirely plausible.
Which isn’t to say that they’re all bad ideas — far from it, I’m sure these kinds of “breakout technology” newsletters all have some dramatic winning picks in their portfolio. The problem is that they all sound like great ideas, and given the bleeding edge nature of most of the technologies they pitch, and the small nature of many of the stocks, the assumption has to be that the major winners will make up for the large number of failures.
The smaller the stocks are that you count on for world-changing returns, the more diversified you need to be — or, I suppose, the more expert and prescient you have to be, though it’s dangerous to start thinking that you can predict things well enough to have a concentrated portfolio of small cap technology names.
But I’m not here to lecture you on how to think about investing in breakthrough technologies — I’m here to try to figure out who Michael Robinson is teasing in his latest ad as the beneficiary of this latest breakout trend. Here’s how he puts it in the email I received today:
“I’m going on record to say that this technology is so overwhelmingly transformative, that I’m comparing it to the internal combustion engine. It will change the way you do everything now and in the future. It’s now creating the Fourth Revolution in the industry. I kid you not, it’s that big.”
So, no shyness there. What is the technology? Here’s more from the ad:
“The End of Disease May Soon Become a Reality Thanks to MEMS
“Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems
“If that name sounds high tech that’s because it is.
“And if you want to live a long and healthy life, without the fear of disease…
“You’ll want to watch this short presentation to the end because…
“MEMS are the Only Existing Technology That Could Eradicate the Dangers of Disease, Add 30 Healthy Years to Your Life…
“And Cost Less Than $50
“And here’s where it gets really exciting for someone in my line of work.
“Today, the patents for the MEMS set to end disease….
“They’re controlled by one tiny, unknown company.
“They Have Been Cleared By the FDA”
You can see the whole presentation if you like here (or read the transcript), it’s a very long one and Robinson talks about how MEMS technology can allow for tiny sensors, powered by body heat, that are implanted under your skin and can alert your smartphone (which will then call your doctor) about changes in your body chemistry that indicate the pending risk of a heart attack. Among many other things, like smart cities with pollution and light sensors all around, and smart arrays of MEMS chips underground to track seismic activity and help to find oil and gas reserves..
So which company is it that he says controls the patents to all this MEMS stuff? After giving examples of a few pharma companies whose stocks skyrocketed on the back of multibillion dollar drugs to address some of the same diseases that can be helped by MEMS technology, he starts to throw in a few clues:
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“A Tech Company 1/30th the Size of These ‘Big Pharma’ Titans, Developed a MEMS Technology That Could End All Heart Disease.
“And it Controls the Patents.
“There is a very simple way for you to get a slice of this company’s patent profits for less than $9. So you’ll be able to cheaply get in, on the ground floor…”
Now, the examples he gave right before that were Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb — so keep that in mind, the stock might not be that tiny. To be 1/30 the size of those titans you’d be talking about a stock with a market cap between $2 billion and $7 billion. Roughly speaking.
Some more clues:
“First Off, They Produce the Lion’s Share of All MEMS Devices.
“Currently, they can produce 4 million devices a day. That’s more than anyone else in the world. And their production capabilities are growing exponentially each year.
“Which is why the companies that turn to them for MEMS technology are a who’s who of Silicon Valley and the Fortune 500 companies.
“Apple, Blackberry, Dell, Bosch, Continental, Delphi, Delta, Denso, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, HTC, Magnetti Marelli, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Seagate, Sony, Western Digital, and Cisco…”
And …
“They Have Also Captured and Secured Total Market Share Domination For All Major Operating Systems.
- They have an astounding 75% of the Apple/iOS market.
- 31.4% of the Android market.
- And 54.4% of the Windows Operating Systems market.
“That’s over 4 times greater than the next closest competitor.
“So when a company is developing a MEMS health technology, and they want to ensure it is scalable across all operating systems both mobile and computer…
“They only have one clear choice.”
And they have a strong patent pipeline, we’re told:
“While this one company controls the Patent Pipeline for the most important MEMS breakthroughs for ending disease…
“Medical MEMS form just one block of their entire 800-patent portfolio.”
So … dominant position in MEMS chips for current mobile phones and tablets, strong patent portfolio with 800+ patents, largest producer of MEMS chips with capacity for four million chips a day, and a stock price under $9. This can only be …
ST Microelectronics (STM)
I know, sorry — this is a big one that you’ve probably already heard of. And it’s been quite weak over the past decade, thanks in part to Asian and US competition (Texas Instruments, all the analog chip makers, etc.) and in part to the weak European economy and currency issues. But it’s probably still the largest European chipmaker, and it was one of the pioneers of MEMS technology and does indeed have the capability of producing four million chips a day, and they do claim 800 patents. There’s quite likely a STM chip in your phone or your car right now.
The MEMS chips, including their medical sensors and other cutting edge products, are a relatively small part of the business, but one that’s growing. That division was less than 20% of sales last year, but the resurgence in growth there is probably a significant reason why the shares have recovered a bit recently. This is a big semiconductor company that might arguably be reasonably priced if you believe the analyst estimates about next year, and if you’re comfortable with their solid dividend (almost 5%), but they also are coming out of a really rough patch — they lost $2 billion last year, tough for a company with a market cap of only $7 billion. There’s a pretty good FT article about them here if you’d like more perspective.
And that’s about all I know about STM — they get teased every now and then as a MEMS pioneer and major patent holder (they’re in a big patent fight with Invensense (INVN) right now, among others), and I agree that MEMS is a huge growth industry, but I don’t know how their patent portfolio will hold up or how long it will be before MEMS chips make a big impact on STM’s bottom line. Most of the companies that are using sensors enabled by STM’s chips are either small or don’t widely publicize the connection, from what I can tell, and most of the early stage research breakthroughs that get trumpeted in this area lately are from not-yet-public little biotech companies.
STM is certainly an industry leader, with a big business in chips for smart phones and tablets and lots of other products, but my impression is that they’re not terribly nimble and they haven’t been very profitable in recent years. If you’ve an opinion to share on this one, feel free to spit it out with a comment below.
Just finished reading the Strategic Tech Investor newsletter and thought I would go look it up on Gumshoe. Low and behold it was todays article. That was fast, really fast. And thank God Travis writes a much shorter article than Michael Robinson. That was a really long read. Thank you Travis for all your insight, the best bargain I ever got on investment advice anywhere. As for STM, don’t know what to think about the recent pullback but the chart certainly looks good. Maybe just a pullback on the way to better times. No quarterly data on Yahoo yet, don’t really want to use precious time digging deeper. Right now I have heavily invested in long gold, and boy, am I a happy camper. Cracked 1350 today and think it will continue for awhile. Good luck and good investing to all the irregulars.
there is also MEMS, which doubled in the past couple months, but is very low cap and very low volume
Thanks. A really strange looking chart, hey
THANK GOD for TRAVIS is right otherwise we’d all be frothing at the mouth and ripping open wallets open to find out LOL> The reality is I rarely ever buy ANY newsletters that tease like that. It is disengenious at best. I pretty much either try to figure it out then give up and let our fearless Gumshoe leader give us the name. Best money I ever spent. Never will I do without Travis. I sure hope I am on automatic subscribtions LOL Thanks .Deb
STM has been beat up for a couple of reasons.
One, it is a European company. European politics tends to focus on today and the individual by making sure making sure everyone gets their “fair share” instead of everyone working for the greater good for the future of humanity, which is what capitalism and competition is all about.
The other is because Apple dropped STM from the I-6 and picked up Invensense. You can see the price of INVN going up as STM has been dropping since the beginning of 2013.
I imagine the price will continue to drop before rising again, depending on what kind of technological advancements the company will make going forward.
I need to cancel my subscription and I’m within the initial 6 months, so I would like my $49 refund.
Thank you,
John
Sure John, we’ll follow up via email.
Always a class act I will join again soon have missed you.
I can’t imagine why you’d cancel your subscription. Gumshoe is the best investment I’ve made in a long time. I’m already making good money off of some recommendations.
To each his own 🙂
cheers
CURIOUS to know: you want refund because pointing out tease bluntly felt bad or that you think it was better to go along the tease, listen to 1 hr of bloated nonsense & buy & hope?
This accidental encounter saved a bundle of time for me because #1 I figured it was the same- old, specially because I work in some distant stuff with MEMS, #2 I have full understanding of these $gurus$. see them coming straight out.
That said, I am glad they will refund you money; as for me I am going to join them.
I would request Gumshoe to pay you an extra buck in refund for helping them find a new customer!
On the other, got to cancel such n/l altogether……………..
r
-robin
ingrate!
Jones displayed poor taste asking so publicly for a refund, These subscribers are acknowledging that.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. We have direct email why did he not use it?
Ditto.
So he needed to “vent”. The important takeaway is that Travis ALLOWED IT. Now that is true transparency and a vote of confidence for Travis.
Wow John, U must be really hurtin’ for bucks. What do U not like about gunshoe?
i believe louis b,connected to m.robinson said the breakthruogh stock sold in the 2.00 range.please check. thnx
Different stock. That one was IWSY, I believe
Travis , Please , do You like any stock connected to this promotion ?
The One Device to End All Disease
If so what is the Stock Symbol ? Thank You , Jon
That one was and is about STM, as I think I noted in the article above. No, I don’t much like it — though it has gotten significantly cheaper, perhaps it’s more appealing now.
Nice thought 2.00 is better than 9 : )
You’re awesome, Travis! I received the M. Robinson newsletter today and submitted the teaser to your contact page just a couple hours ago. Like the first commenter here I chuckled a bit when your email came a few minutes ago and the lead was this teaser!
You have a truly valuable service and I’ve appreciated it for free too long. I plan on joining the irregulars today!
Keep up the good work!
— Dax
STM competes with Qualcom and Texas Instruments.. Of teh 3 STM has a higher Beta and is considered more risky..
ST competes with Qualcom?
hein, how do you get that….you a “wallstreet advisor” or somethign?( l let a adv letter go once when I saw “RIMM competing with IBM in one analysis)
you GOT to keep certain things straight though to be credible here
r
It’s true. QCOM has been involved in MEMS for about 10 years and has a large patent portfolio in that space. Just google MEMS Qualcomm.
STMicroelectronics is a clumsy joint venture between Italian and French computer firms with two governments’ subsidies, why it is so bureaucratic and why it is probably a bad choice for technology breakthroughs.
Everything has to be voted on by two companies and 2 government capitals. It was supposed to be a European champion against US and Asian chips.
We owned it ages ago in the 1990s when we were still a print newsletter. It was then a very expensive stock but we bailed out in time, before the tech bust.
right on about ST
but then all companies ate stuck somewhere in a bureaucracy. Pl do not ask me to list.
it is going to look nasty.
r
Just look at Mike P’s picture. Dishonesty!!!!!!! That’s gut feeling. Trust your gut feeling. Thanks
codi sand reed glre just 4 20%+ stoks that have paid for a gumshoe subscription 50 times over
You should be really happy with REED this past week, approaching it’s previous high over $7.00 where I sold and then bought back in just over $5. The latest analyst to pick up on it has set a target of $10. in 2014, and it won’t surprise me if he is right.
Myron! Good to see you. Hope that you are OK.
ed
I read Robinson’s article earlier today and thought “Wow! Gotta get into this one!” Then I thought again, “Hmmm I wonder if the gumshoe will cover this? I’ll wait and see.”
I’m glad you saved me from myself and investigated this chip thing! I also discovered MEMS but not STM so thanks again. Now there are two for me to watch and STM is a sure ringer for what Robingson was talking about…I still don’t understand his “I’ll give you $2000” offer….to tell you the truth that really turned me off….NOBODY gives money away on the internet..duhhhhh!
Actually Stock Gumshoe saves me from buying into so many of these hyped up offers, it’s like getting paid to red these newsletters!
Harry
Read!… read these newsletters
No bueno. The chart is heading south, under the ichimoku cloud, negative Chaiken money flow, and a very choppy pattern. Resistance is overhead at 9 and it looks like a Elliott wave bearish wave downside correction. I would wait for any indicator that shows a reversal from it’s present downtrend off the June 19 th high of 10.05. maybe there’s an upcoming event that can move it. It pays a good dividend, 4.74% which appears to be moving the stock through the execution and payout cycles.
That’s one of the favorite ways of getting attention for offering a “discount” — instead of saying your $3,000 newsletter is on sale for $1,000, you say that you’ll give someone $2,000 cash back to buy the stock because you believe in it so strenuously. Apparently it works, because several of the big publishers do the “I’ll send you a check” pitch.
The subscription he offers is supposed to be $3,000+, and he offers it for only $1,000+. In this way he is supposed to offer you $2,000 if you opt to subscribe! What makes me wonder is why he is trying to make his money from subscriptions, if he (and so many other newsletter writers) has such good stock market knowledge that can increase his funds by 63,000X.
that has been the question on my mind since I started getting thoes types of emails. If they can make so much money why would they be selling subscriptions. Certainly not out of the goodness of their hearts.
With all newsletters, if the potential gains are that great, why let us suckers in?
The answer is always the same. A group of creative copywriters can make more money selling subscriptions rather than trading options on their so called research. Often their research is nothing but a rehash of another copywriter for another newsletter.
At least Larry Edelson at Weiss admits he follows Martin Armstrong and if you read both you see Martin’s free blog is always first.
If you publish a newsletter you also subscribe to many. Those that are established subscribe to all of them and thus can keep up with the latest teasers and use the work of others.
BOTTOM LINE: If your system is that good, you practice it and you keep it secret unless you have more money than you need.
When the writers are not allowed to own or trade in their recommendations, they have NO SKIN IN THE GAME.
This now popular strategy of offering cheques to invest in their promotions is being repeated by a number of newsletter publishers and should be a dead give-away that even @ $1195. you are being hustled. Better to spend $49. for good guidance like Gumshoe provides and put the other $1100. + into the few stocks that pass muster.
These “gimmicks” should tell you how difficult the newsletter business has become since the market tanked mid 2011 and what must be a large number of stressed investors asking for refunds, particularly the more expensive ones that have a hard time living up to their hype. In Michael Robinson’s case he promises to “work for free” if he does not make you at least $20,000 the first year. The fact remains he still has the use of your money up front instead of you having it invested in good stocks you can find without paying an arm and a leg for good research.
This is my 1st comment ever and I have been irregulars member several years. It is not what I might buy that Travis buys but what I might buy listening to newsletters without his snoop dog keen observation to help me make decisions that compels me to seek his knowledge before I buy. I guarantee the man who wants his money back will still read the free stuff not willing to help out Travis with a few bucks for his service.
Not gonna say how long I read for free before I ponied up 🙂
Sorry this is a little off-topic but I saw the IWSY pitch mentioned … the big day Louis mentioned did not seem to yield the announcement he was expecting. IWSY had a bit of a dump, but nothing huge. Any thoughts on holding this one or selling? I have a very small speculative position
I also have a small position on IWSY and was wondering the same thing…
‘Tis a shame I say!
Here I was all excited to bring another ‘blockbuster’ tease to you only to find it ‘busted’!
Even more of a shame, perhaps, is that poor Michael – whose articles I always enjoy despite the hype & his seemingly-obligatory typos – has become so desperate as to offer not only a 2/3 ‘refund’ but to work for us for free if that $2K ‘stake’ isn’t multiplied 10-fold in a year!
Now, I’m as greedy as the next retiree who lost 1/3 of his IRA in the mid-decade past crash, but even I’m not that gullible!
“How the mighty are fallen!”
PS…As always, thanks very much Travis!
BTW…I generously offered Michael my ‘services’ as a proof-reader merely for the benefit of being on the ‘inside’ but to no avail!
I also was also able to track down STM but further research has lead me to Biomeme.
This is presently a privately held business but I believe it may go public next year.
Thanks for alerting me to Biomeme, very interesting.
Always a good read. Whether I’m regular or irregular.
you might look at Kia Silverbrook and Geneasys Genetic Analysis System.
Hi Stock Gum Shoe,
Thank you for your timely analysis regarding this report. I had a question though. The presentation also said that this mystery company sold for 126 million in 2006. It seems like you are dead on with all the other signs that it is stmicro, however, I wasnt able to find an article stating thay stmicro was purchased at all in 2006, let alone for 126 million. Have you been able to find this?
i found zebra bought whernet (rfid manufacturing) in 126 million $ back in 2006 ????????? link : http://venturebeat.com/2007/01/15/zebra-buys-rfid-company-wherenet-for-126-million
Does anyone have an answer for Chris G’s question? (See directly above)