3SOF

Keep your eyes on SPIR over the next few days --

When it touches back down to that $9.11 - 9.12 - 9.13 level of support it will present an excellent buying opportunity. It should form another small base at that same level and then rise slightly before breaking out in my opinion.

Make a note of this call and *SMITE* me if I'm wrong, but I think the PPS will be trading at near $15.00 within ten trading days.

Rabid

Associated Press, with hundreds of subscriber newspapers, recently ran an arrticle,
"Alternative fuel stocks skyrocketing," hyping Spire Technology, a firm whose stock price has multiplied 2.5 times in the last three months.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/12612250.htm

In my opinion, there's a good chance that come Monday AM the momo players who created the spikey chart below will return for a quick point or two, and then disappear just as fast.

Important to remember: Spire Technology has been around for 30 years, losing money nearly the whole time. They have survived by taking government research grants, and occasionally licensing out the technology developed. Their recent profitable quarter was due to a couple of large, non-recurring payments for the licensing of technology (only one of which was for solar technology, the other was for medical catheter technology), and their next earnings report is certain to be dismal unless more non-recurring events arise.

I've made more money shorting Spire at its peaks than from investing long.

One statement made in the article, "the company makes a profit and has solid sales," is incredibly misleading. Reading the quarterlies does not foster that impression at all. In fact, a related party transaction with CEO Roger Little has brought him millions in lease payments for the company's facilities, while the company has stacked up losses.

I'm mainly posting this because I think the chart is very interesting, and would like to know what others more well-versed in TA make of it. At the leftt of the chart is a 20-day "bull flag", then the next 40 days show two more bull flags attempted, but lacking a proper "flagpost."

I agree, robt. (Applause)

SPIR is a tricky one, and I think people forget that it was way down because of delinquency (spelling?) earlier in the year.

I just posted this:
http://www.3stocksonfire.org/trading/index.php?topic=1741.msg20532#msg20532

I must say that I like the other 3 stocks better.

yipes...guess with both AP and the Times on the case there will be action in all four stocks.

The reason I like SPIR better than the others is that I've already ridden it up and down enough to feel fairly confident in calling its tops and bottoms, so I've been able to make out on both the long and the short side. The other companies are better businesses, so I can't rely on them taking a dive, as I can with SPIR.

Interesting NY Times quote from Spire's chairman: "Roger G. Little, Spire's chairman and chief executive, says he sees the Chicago venture as a harbinger of Spire's future."

Spire Solar Chicago was initially described, back in 1999-2001, as a flagship for Spire's plan to create multiple local solar businesses. The remnants of that plan are still on the web:

http://www.spiresolarchicago.com

http://www.spiresolarflorida.com

Visiting these sites are like visiting a ghost town. Spir's most recent quarterlies no longer make any mention of either of the localized Spire outfits.

as near as I can determine, Spire Chicago was a government-funded fiasco. The initial deal was for $6 million from the local utility and $2 million from the city:

============================================
Spire Receives $6 Million from Utility for Solar Power
BEDFORD, Mass., Aug. 23, 1999 -- Spire Corp. has entered into an agreement to provide $6 million worth of solar electric (photovoltaic) systems to Commonwealth Edison Co. of Chicago over the next 30 months. ComEd has agreed to give Spire right of first refusal through 2004 to supply systems beyond this initial commitment. This agreement is in addition to a commitment from the city of Chicago to purchase $2 million in systems from a Spire-formed, Chicago-based business.

The systems supplied under the Spire-ComEd agreement will be manufactured at a new Chicago manufacturing plant to be called Spire Solar Chicago. The formation of this business comes as the result of a collaborative effort between Spire, ComEd, the city of Chicago, and the US Department of Energy.

=======================================

In fall of 2002, Berkley Labs had this to say about the Chicago solar program:

In 1999, the City of Chicago and ComEd used a $2 million and $6 million purchase commitment, respectively, to lure Spire Corporation -- a Massachusetts-based manufacturer of PV assembly line equipment -- to build a PV manufacturing facility on a redeveloped brownfield site on the west side of Chicago.

Additional incentives are provided by the state's Renewable Energy Resources Program (RERP), which funds 60% of installed PV system costs, as well as anadditional $6 million from ComEd notspecifically earmarked for Spire systems, but nonetheless available for PV in general. This "brightfield" initiative" -- the first of its kind -- resulted in a new company called Spire Solar Chicago, and a new collaborative called the Chicago Solar Partnership.

Spire Solar Chicago has installed roughly 550kW since January 2000, mostly on public buildings such as museums and schools within Chicago city limits. While price reductions were built into the $8 million purchase commitments, Spire Solar Chicago has thus far had difficulty meeting them due to a number of factors, including construction delays, incomplete production lines and low production volume, a requirement to use expensive union labor, and strict building codes that have caused some installation delays. These factors have reportedly made itdifficult to beat $10 per installed watt. The new manufacturing facility was only recentlycompleted in February 2002, well behind schedule. In the interim, Spire Solar Chicago was operating out of temporary facilities withincomplete production lines and sub-optimal working conditions. Furthermore, the price reductions were based at least partially on a500 kW PV installation at another brownfield site, which has not yet happened. While Spire Solar Chicago has faced its share of difficulties, the company remains optimistic that prices will begin to decline now that it has settled into its new production facility and ramped up to full production capacity.

==========================================

The long list of excuses doesn't mitigate the failure. 

By this time, SPIR's "optimism" was pointless, as the $8 million and the 30 month period were both gone. Despite SPIR's right of first refusal for city contracts through 2004, no major solar projects were announced after the above report was released in Sept, 2002. In mid-2004, Spire sold the production equipment in the Chicago location to BP Solar.

Here, as in a lot of writing about the solar business, Spire is getting the benefit of an effect I call "the solar glow" -- kind treatment by good people everywhere, who wish to find good and avoid criticism in every solar effort. This has allowed Spire to completely gloss over their stupendous failure in Chicago.

SPIR running now !

Yep, and I think it'll pick up more momentum today. But watch it -- as the chart shows, it lost 70-80% of its gains on the last two big rallies. "Letting the profits run" won't work here. Better to pick a top early than late.

Cumulina, the delisting issue with SPIR was due to stockholder equity falling below NASDAQ's 10 million requirement. The recent quarter brought it up to 11 million, but without the one-time events that filled their coffers last quarter, the issue is bound to rise again after next earnings.

The company seemed to acknowledge that this is still an issue in their last press release regarding the delisting:

Quote
"Although the Company believes it has regained compliance with the Rule as of June 30, 2005, in order to avoid future listing problems with respect to the Nasdaq National Market, the Company may still decide to apply to transfer the listing of its common stock to the Nasdaq SmallCap Market. "

CEO Roger Little didn't mention the move to the small cap index to Associated Press:

Quote
Since June, however, Spire's stock has doubled. It's now in compliance with listings requirements, said Roger Little, Spire's CEO. "The issue's gone away," he said. A Nasdaq spokeswoman did not return calls for this report.

SPIR is running again, based on a press release about a solar installation in a Connecticutt office building.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050928/285156.html?.v=1

As is customary with Spire's "smoke and mirrors" PR, no financial details are disclosed, but spire's past pricing policies indicate that this deal adds maybe 100k to their top line.

This latest Spire pump is on a collission course with certainly dismal earnings scheduled for mid-November. Even if the 100k were to be included in the current quarter, it won't help.

Based on this pump (and an earlier PR about a photovoltaic production line Spire has sold to Unison of Korea), insiders have been selling like crazy since the stock rose above 10

I am doing the same -- initiated a short position which I expect to hold right up to and through earnings. Its size is modest, but I will add as Spire climbs, with intentions of holding a significant piece of SPIR at earnings.

Syndicated columnist Malcolm Berko recently had these apt comments for SPIR:

Dear Mr. Berko: Would you buy Spire and why or why not?

B.W.
Galesburg

Spire Corp. (SPIR-$11.18) is a $17 million revenue company that develops, makes and markets solar equipment, solar systems, optoelectronics and biomedical products. SPIR also makes and sells hemodialysis catheters and other related devices to treat chronic kidney diseases. However, SPIR's future strength may derive from its design and manufacture of special equipment to produce photovoltaic modules from solar cells and its application of biophotonic technologies.

Woof — that's a mouthful of polysyllabic words!

Higher second-quarter profits of 67 cents a share in mid-August ran the stock up from $7.88 to $13.37 on news of a 73 percent increase in revenues. Higher revenues resulted from the sale of two of SPIR's photovoltaic module assembly lines, a huge solar installation in Chicago and I think those big sales may be an anomaly.

SPIR has no debt, just 7 million shares out, a fair cash position and a $1.65 book value . I feel the company is light on management and light on reputation, its product line is no better than that of its competitors but it's a timely product and that's the major reason the stock ran so far so fast. SPIR is just a nice, dinky firm that is mired in mediocrity. The four top bananas at this 107-employee Bedford, Mass., firm are underpaid and they may be worth it. The stock is speculative and not even a good speculation at that. Don't buy it.
-----------------------------------------------
SPIR closed today at 10.74

This is what happens when a number of threads are started on the same stock.
One has to search and find the thread that they were posting to.
In order to see what comments you made on the pick before.
I think it would be so much better to merge, with different threads started.
It is so much better to see the history of a pick all on one thread.It does not matter to me one way or the other,if you made the pick or I made the pick, just as long as we make some profits. As is this stock has 4 different threads.
The history of a stock pick being in one place is what is most important to me.
What about you all ? Try it, you will see the advantages of this simplified process.

This is the thread that I first posted to when this pick was made,so this is the thread I will continue to post to.

TA:
http://www.stockta.com/cgi-bin/analysis.pl?symb=SPIR&num1=7&cobrand=&mode=stock

Chart:

I've been selling SPIR short the last few days.

SPIR cannot hold a gain, espcially at this juncture; even a modest amount of DD will reveal that its recent profitable quarter ws due to an influx of cash from two non-recurring license sales. Next earnings are very likely to be dismal.

The current pump was sparked by a press release concerning a complete non-event -- a single solar installation in an office building that will add, at most, $100K to the top line, and not even in the currrent quarter.

More details on the short argument appear here:

http://www.3stocksonfire.org/trading/index.php?topic=2634.msg24255#msg24255

Today was a losing day for me in SPIR, congrats to longs! I still plan to win long-term, though, and have added to my short position.

I have to admit the chart is looking very strong!

When SPIR rises, iit's important to take profits early! Despite yesterday's strong-looking chart, and some positive premarket trading, SPIR was in decline throughout the day, closing at 10.63, which puts my short position just barely in the green

More negative progress, good for shorts. The precipitous oil drop not yet reflected in the chart.

Now we can see the oil drop, and the market's aversion to everything that has to do with energy.

Today I covered a third of the shares, at 9.30. This will allow me to short more if there is an AM run-up tomorrow.

A small-volume bull day. Not enough ooomph in the action to justify shorting further.

The pattern of this stock is to trade sideways for about two weeks, to spike up, and then to drop. I suspect it will be sideways for a while, so no more updates from me unless there's a concrete development.