In 2002, we learned about a new auto theft deterrent called "Lo Jack". The working mechanism was that a wireless device was installed somewhere in your car. In the case that the car is stolen, the constant signal emitted by such device would notify the cop instantly. Recovery of the vehicles equipped with Lo Jack thus are significantly improved. Many peopel wowed it as the only REAL effective way against auto theft. Since then, the stock has surged from 4 dollars to over 20 dollars today. I still regret not paying attention to its stock even by knowing such an revolutionary invention.

Lessons learned: pay attention to good products around you. Something you know make sense make sense to a lot of other people as well.

Recently I just found a relly neat piece of software to search items on my desktop. Google's desktop search received much publicity but it isn't nearly as neat as this software. Later I learned the company, Copernic, has been purchased by Mamma.Com Inc. (MAMA). I visited mamma.com and well, there's no big deal. The company is a search engine of the search engines. I don't know how much marginal benefits it provide with the abundant existence of the search engines. If Google and Yahoo are the stocks, this site is more like a mutual fund. If holding the invidual stocks themselves can provide you with stable return and steady dividends, why bother to buy the mutual fund with extra overhead? That probably the reason why its stock hasn't been good at all.

But by enabling Copernic probably it has a new edge in the crowd. I can't yet tell where the profitability comes from, but I have a feeling that it would gain traction in visits and usages. For a small company of its size, you don't need to beat Google or Yahoo in every aspect. You just need to focus on some area and do it really well, and the market would reward you.

There's little information financially. The latest available from Nasdaq are the reports from 2004. The key statistics aren't bad at all. With about 23.88 million cash in hand, total cash per share alone is 1.996, compared to the stock price of 2.88 today. Current ratio is 9.97 and debt/equity ratio is 0 (??? don't think this is correct though). Profitability is still an issue, but all the statistics show significant improvement over the dot com bubble era.

¶ 5:30 PM

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