Sometimes I have to write to simply chronicle another event in an investment that fewer folks care about. Today, March 5, 2026, MVIS was down 29.14%. If I said ouch I couldn’t back it up with the appropriate emotion. I can’t recall which came first, the resigned sigh or the familiar subdued chuckle. I’ve held MVIS since March 6, 2000. I didn’t even notice the synchronicity of the dates until I pulled up the data for this post. LTBH (Long Term Buy and Hold) is like any investment strategy; none are risk-free, and it is hard to know when the story is truly over, or just about to rebound.

Most of my friends who bought MVIS have sold the stock long ago. They displayed wisdom, and in one case they displayed the wisdom of making a relationship choice over a financial one. Risky investments, like MVIS, gold mining, the lottery, et al, can cause divides within a relationship. One couple I know decided their romance wasn’t benefited by the addition of this kind of finance. Wise people. Good people. 

Me? I bought MVIS because Microvision was advertising their ability to display day-light readable images in eyewear and on human retinas in 2000. It was 2000. The shift from curved CRTs to flat CRTs to laptops proved the ability of more efficient display technology to be enormous and positive. They weren’t ready to go to market, but I was ready to wait. I bought 100 shares. 

Price ~ $60.

This year, 2026, Microvision has yet to launch a commercially successful product. Since that CEO in 2000 (RR?), there have been several (AT, PM, SS, GdV?, at least). Each has identified a change the company needed. Each basically abandoned the previous CEO’s ideas. Each has sounded positive and confident. I suspect each was accompanied by impressive compensation packages (though I wonder about RR and that chaotic history.)

MVIS (which is quicker to type than Microvision, so I’ll abbreviate it) has new leadership, is laying off employees, and is moving the headquarters to Florida. Is there a more appropriate place to be underwater?

Price $0.55

Is the universe trying to insert poetry or artistry or some strange symmetry to a hundred-fold drop since I bought my first shares?

I watch my stocks every day. I don’t analyze them often. Others quantify every twitch in the price, every nuance in the news, every hint of hope or horror. I find the story fascinating, and eventually sad.

I won’t chronicle the company’s optimisms and pessimisms. MVIS lives in the realm of story stocks that are rarely covered by the major media, and are likely to be mentioned in social media with ALL CAPS HEADLINES and LOTS OF !!!!!!! Small, pre-revenue companies can persist within non-disclosure agreements for years, hiding behind or being confined by the NDAs. Individual stockholders are left with scraps and inferences to replace news. Finances reflect lab work, so are not useful for projections. Projections are guesses, with little to differentiate between educated or not.

So, why not simply sell?

I invested in the technology by buying the stock. The technology still holds a potential that is impressive to me. They’ve already produced a projector that fit in a smartphone. Always in focus. They’ve demonstrated gaming guns that drew the images on your walls, so players can move, not just sit there. They’ve built barcode scanners, have contributed to MSFT’s Hololens eyewear, have impressive LiDAR sensors, and more I’m sure. 

MVIS’s tech is based on a mirror on a chip, small, simple, lightweight, lots of positives. 

The mirror on a chip is a solution seeking a problem, though I think it is an opportunity waiting for some customer to make MVIS successful despite themselves.

A few years ago, the stock was down to $0.15. After a new CEO and a bit more than a hint of good news, the stock climbed a hundred-fold.

It can happen again, or not.

I’ve held MVIS through some personally turbulent times. I am experiencing a bit of relief now. Other stocks in my portfolio have done very well. MVIS has become a knick-knack, a conversation piece, a slightly crumpled lottery ticket squeezed into a fold in my wallet.

I missed one opportunity with it. In 2025, I sold some shares of QBTS. Within the previous two years it went from where I bought it ~$1 to over $40. Profit! Taxes. I should’ve sold some of my original MVIS shares that now represent massive losses, relatively. I could’ve matched the QBTS gains with some of the MVIS losses. Alas, I realized it too late. Maybe this year.

In the year 2000:

• NASDAQ was at 4,935 and would fall to ~1,200 within two years. Today it is over 22,700.
• Y2K was safely passed, and thanks to everyone who made it happen safely despite the jokes that were made about your work.
• iPhones weren’t. 
• Phones still had physical keyboards.
• Wikipedia wasn’t launched, yet.
• People were still making fun of investing in Amazon.
• I hadn’t written any books yet.

The world keeps changing, and I think the change is accelerating. Eyewear today may be where phones were then. Electric vehicles weren’t common, but now they don’t stand out unless they include augmented driving, and maybe not then. Microvision may yet financially benefit the shareholders as some trend catches up with it. 

MVIS is a stock. Microvision is a company. The company is a story that is based on a technology, but a company is also people. For decades, Microvision has supported dozens of families, as well as board members. Shareholders, well, we’re still waiting.