Tag - Rmtr

Ramtron International (Nasdaq:RMTR)
Colorado Springs, Colo.
http://www.ramtron.com

52-week low / high: $2.64/ $5.09
Shares Outstanding: 26.56 million
Market Capitalization: $125.01 million

Colorado Springs has a long history of invention and technology. Because the city is one of the most active lightning strike areas in the United States, the genius inventor Nikola Tesla built his lab and studied electricity in the city. In 1984, Ramtron International (Nasdaq:RMTR) also decided to make Colorado Springs its home.

The research and development firm makes and markets ferroelectric memory chips and microcontroller and integrated semiconductor solutions. Ferroelectric memory is non-volatile computer memory that offers high-speed writing, low power consumption and extended rewriting life. The chips can be written and rewritten over a trillion times.

When a material shows spontaneous electric — plus or minus — polarization, the material shows the ferroelectricity phenomenon. Ferroelectricity was first recognized in a crystal in 1921 by Joseph Valasek, a University of Minnesota physics instructor. Ramtron was able to create memory chips using ferroelectricity in 1992 and went public in 1993 in response to the promise F-RAM chips held. The market was slow to adopt the new technology and since going public, shares of the company are down more than 86%.

However, Ramtron has been finding additional uses for F-RAM chips and revenue has experienced an upward trend. In 2007, revenue totaled $51.1 million, up 26% from $40.5 million in 2006 and up 49% from $34.4 million in 2005. Wall Street analysts, on average, expect Ramtron to post revenue of $64 million in 2008, which would represent a 25% improvement. Ramtron says it expects 2008 revenue to range from $63.4 million to $65.4 million.

In its 2007 annual report to investors, Ramtron said its 2008 plan “anticipates growth in all of our end markets, particularly in the computing area as our custom devices for printer cartridges gain momentum.”

To drive growth, the firm released 17 new products in 2007 and plans 14 more for 2008. Ramtron expects 27% of sales to come from its metering devices segment, 34% from computing and information systems, 14% from automotive and 25% from industrial, scientific and medical.

Earnings are also improving. After posting losses in 2003 and 2005, Ramtron clocked a profit of $9.9 million, or $0.37 per share, in 2007. The yearly earnings improved more than 18 times from $0.5 million, or $0.02 per share, during 2006.

Wall Street’s opinion on Ramtron is so-so. Analysts rate the stock 2.5, with 1 being a “strong buy” and 5 being a “sell.” The one analyst surveyed by Thomson/First Call has a $10 price target on the stock. On Feb. 15, investment bank Collins Stewart downgraded Ramtron to “hold” while slashing its 2008 earnings estimate to $0.16 from $0.25 a share. In a note to investors, Collins Stewart said the downgrade was based on valuation.

For more on the company, read Ramtron International: Tough little memory chips with a big future.

Note: Ramtron International (Nasdaq:RMTR) is on the “Watch List” of Rising Star Stocks, a subscription investment newsletter from Business Financial Publishing, which also publishes SmallCapInvestor.com. As a Watch List company, Ramtron displays many characteristics found in successful stock winners, and is being closely monitored for possible inclusion in the Rising Star Stocks portfolio at a later date.

Nobody is quite sure who first expressed the thought (attribution has been given to Robert Heinlein, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and Paul Saffo at the Institute for the Future, among others), but someone once noted that we tend to overestimate the short-term impact of a new technology and underestimate its long-term impact.

There are few examples that epitomize that adage more than Ramtron International Corp. (Nasdaq:RMTR) in Colorado Springs, Colo. The company was founded in 1984 as a research and development company to develop a new memory chip to exploit a phenomenon known as ferroelectricity. That phenomenon, discovered in 1921, is one in which certain materials can be made to exhibit electric polarization — plus or minus — and maintain that state indefinitely. It’s similar to ferromagnetism, in which materials such as iron can become magnetized and remain that way.

The promise of FRAM (ferroelectric random access memory) chips looked exciting. By applying an outside electrical field, the polarity of the ferroelectric material can be reversed. That theoretically made it possible to create a ferroelectric chip that could be programmed with the binary language of today’s electronics but with no danger of being erased by magnetic interference.

Ramtron succeeded by late 1992, and between 1993 and 1997 it built and operated a manufacturing plant to make ferroelectric memory chips. The chips are very fast, with extraordinarily high endurance — they can be written and re-written over a trillion times.

Based on that promise, the company went public in early 1993 at $7 per share; the stock doubled by August 1995. But, as with many new inventions, the marketplace was slow to adopt it. Four years later it was a penny stock, and instituted a 1:5 reverse-split in October 1999.

It’s proving to be a long road back. In the last six years, the stock has . . .

The Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) sell-off continues as investors react to disappointing earnings news and a decline in consumer confidence.

At 12:39 p.m. ET, the small-cap index had shed 12.34 points, or 1.74%, to 695.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 180.43 points, or 1.43%, to 12,401.55.

The morning’s bearish sentiment has carried over into the afternoon on news before the opening that General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) saw its first-quarter earnings from continuing operations decline 8% to $0.44 per share from $0.48 per share a year earlier.

The Fairfield, Conn.-based company, considered a bellwether due to its size and reach, blamed the decline on the slowing U.S. economy.

Elsewhere, a report after the start of trading from the University of Michigan showed that consumer confidence fell more than expected in April. The result is the lowest in more than 20 years and a sign that the majority of Americans are pessimistic about their financial future.