LTBH And Lots Of Waiting

How long do you or I have to wait for the good news to come? That depends on the topic, the issue, the reason to wonder about it. Next week, two of my largest (ha!) stock holdings will announce earnings. Both of them had Forward Looking Statements in 2022 and 2023 that suggested that by about now, good news would arrive. Those bits of quantifiable, signficant, and positive items of good news didn’t arrive then; so, I must consider selling my house now. A week of waiting, but then, I’ve held shares in both of those stocks since 1999. For the next week, I wonder and wait while also cleaning my house, decluttering, and shopping. It will be an interesting week.

The short version, which I’ve already delayed by a paragraph, is Geron and MicroVision, GERN and MVIS. Geron’s mission is simple, but its technology is complex. Their goal is to extend the human lifespan significantly. MicroVision’s technology is inherently simple, but evidently, its commercial applications have had problems. (#MassiveUnderstatement)

Geron started with four innovative technologies, things like stem cells, cloning, controlling telomeres – and it’s been so long that I forgot the fourth. To stay alive, they’ve sold off everything except controlling telomeres. Telomeres are molecules that tell cells when to die or continue living. Control cell death, and hopefully control cancer. Control cell life, and maybe autoimmune diseases become easier to manage. I might be wrong, but that’s this shareholder’s understanding. Their current target is blood disorders. They’re aiming for FDA approval. Approval means they can finally begin treating people, and hopefully become a long-term and viable company, and also extend the treatment to other disorders. It has been a long road.

MicroVision, oh MicroVision, is based on the ingenious idea of oscillating a mirror on a chip. Light bouncing one way becomes a display. Light bouncing the other way becomes a sensor. Bounce light both ways and do things no one else can do. I’ll try to add a spreadsheet of most of the products they’ve tried to commercialize up to 2019. It is an impressive list. My favorite is a projector that fits in a cell phone – which is no longer available. Close behind are augmented reality glasses that they worked on before I ever heard of Google Glass. Now, they’re selling augmented reality headsets commercially and to the military, but they don’t get nearly the press of Apple. They are also trying to sell the sensors that let autonomous vehicles see what’s around them. To stay alive, they’ve diluted their stock so much that my initial investment may be hard to recover. MVIS, too, has been on a long road.

Waiting much? Yeah, but look at the books I’ve written and see a pattern of long-term efforts. Of course, if you could see my finances, you could see a pattern of “Well, that should have worked, and so should’ve that, and that, and…” It’s time for the road to finally get somewhere significant, positive, and quantifiable.

My style of investing is called Long Term Buy and Hold, LTBH. Buy stock in a new, small company; ride it through times that are probably risky; sell it after it succeeds and benefit from the proceeds. My style of investing is described in my book, Dream. Invest. Live., which is called that because I invest to live, not to simply win some game.

LTBH worked well enough for most of my investing history that I was able to retire in 1998. Thank you to the stocks that people who laughed at the time, stocks like SBUX (Starbucks), AOL/AMER (America Online), PIXR (Pixar), FFIV (f5 Networks), et al. This ‘should’ work.

It also worked with two other key stocks: DNDN (Dendreon), AMSC (American Superconductor). They kicked in just as the Great Recession hit, which made my life something to look forward to. Then, in two unrelated cases, both companies were targeted by groups that bankrupted one and severely damaged the other. Both groups were found guilty, but the money, my money, was gone. I subsequently lost 98% of my net worth. That story has played out in this blog, and the story continues.

LTBH is risky. I can make a longer list of stocks where it didn’t work. That’s the nature of investing. Some go up. Some go down. But buying Long has a nearly unlimited potential upside. Ideally, a few great ups can counter even more downs because the downs are limited to losing 100%. Some of my ups have gone from ~$1 to ~$40.

Two of my downs also reveal an unexpected consequence, bankrupt companies that become successful. Dendreon went bankrupt, but they’re back in business. Unfortunately, my shares are gone. Iridium was and is a satellite telephone service that went bankrupt, but is still operational. The satellites were up there; someone might as well use them. The ideas succeeded, even if my investments didn’t.

Even the companies that failed can be considered successes for those employed there who made good salaries, bought homes, raised families, sent kids to school, and furthered their careers. Shareholders can complain, but from the perspective of a CEO making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in various compensation packages, the company represents at least some success.

Some economics historian can say better whether LTBH made more sense in 1999 than it does in 2024. Just because it worked for me through 2010 doesn’t mean it works post-pandemic (though we’re still in it), or amidst computerized trading (now with AI!), or in the general chaos that is our current random world. I don’t know. I just buy and hold. And hold. And hold. And hold.

There’s a cartoon that I wish I could find. It shows two miners. They are both tunneling into a mountain, hoping to find that gold (or whatever.) One quits six inches away from breaking through into a treasure. The other, of course, perseveres that extra bit.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein (supposedly)

Which is LTBH: perseverance or insanity?

Geron’s and MicroVision’s news will not resolve that quandary. Catchy phrases don’t have to prove statistical significance. I own both stocks because I like their potential. Geron exends human life? Excellent! MicroVision obsoletes big old boxy televisions with something that fits in a smartphone? Imagine the savings in warehouses, transportation fuel and costs, packaging and the inevitable landfills,… Or are either or both of them simply job centers for cloistered technical talent and nicely compensated management?

Next week, they report earnings, not necessarily product announcements. But both can happen, and I think the product announcements are past due. People need cures. Surely, more than one of MicroVision’s products will be a positive, significant, quantifiable success. In the meantime, it is time to clean up the house in case it needs to be sold; and apply for jobs still; and hope for my books and photos to sell, and while I’m at it, check that lottery ticket.