It's Not All Penny Stocks in Nanotech

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 11:03 am EST, Wednesday November 4, 2009

Strong earnings lifted the nanotech sector on Wednesday.

Hillsboro, Oregon-based nano-scale imaging and analysis instrument firm FEI Co. (NASDAQ: FEIC - News) reported a 60% sequential jump to 16 cents in third-quarter EPS. The company also topped last year's third-quarter EPS figure of 11 cents. FEI's backlog at the end of the quarter was a record $345.7 million, 90% of which should ship in the next 12 months according to the company press release. FEI also offered fourth-quarter sales guidance of between $145 million and $152 million, based on a euro/dollar exchange rate of $1.45.

Investors are pleased with the report, sending FEI shares up by 8% today. The stock is the top performing component of the Nanotech Stocks Index over the last week, up by 5.5%.

Harris & Harris Group (NASDAQ: TINY - News), a New York-based venture capital firm specializing in nanotech start-ups, and biopharmaceutical company Flamel Technologies (NASDAQ: FLML - News) are among today's top performers. Both are ahead by more than 4% in today's session.

In the last month, Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ: VECO - News), a Plainview, New York-based LED, solar, data storage, and semiconductor play has led the Index with a 10% rally. Meanwhile, battery technology play Ener1 (NASDAQ: HEV - News) and Las Vegas-based NV Energy (NYSE: NVE - News) are both off by over -20% for the period.

Battery play Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ: ALTI - News) and the PowerShares Lux Nanotech ETF (NYSE: PXN - News) are both winners over the last week.

As of this writing, the Nanotech Stocks Index is one of the 20 worst-performing tickerspy Indexes over the last month, down by -8%.

Investors can track the Nanotech Stocks Index and view a suite of performance metrics at tickerspy.com.

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