How can CPFers cash in on LED technology?

I have always wondered with so many industries utilizing LEDs now and will be in the future, how can we cash in on it? Are Lumileds and Nichia privately owned companies? If not, then how can I get in on some shares of Lumileds/Nichea stock and cash in big time when the rest of the world catches on that LEDs are the future?

Check with a Stock Broker firm to find out.

I presume that if a manufacturer is a plc we can buy shares in it, as plc means that it has been floated on the Stock Exchange. I don't know of any plc's in the LED manufacturing scene.

We could of course wait for Wayne's ELEKTROLUMENS company to grow and invest in the torch business!

While I am NO EXPERT on investments, I WILL tell you this:

JUST having a good product, or a good idea, or a good concept, will not GUARANTEE that you will be successful in the stock market. (I am not saying that it will not, either).

Look at AMD. For years, they were selling chips that were Intel compatabale, and ran faster and sold for less than the equavilent Intel chip, but their stock never sky rocketed!

I have a friend who is a career chef, and the one thing that he will not do, is invest in any company that has anything to do with food. Reason is, is that he doesn't want his professional opinion to cloud is investments. He might see a great new product, come out, and he says to himself, I have been waiting my entire career for someone to come out with this product, and invest in it, and the company not do well.

Or maybe the trend is to invest in companies a layer or two below the LED market. Invest in the company that supplies the tools to MAKE the LED's.

You are right, it is worth looking at, but just realise, that just because you say "This is the flashlight that I have been waiting for my entire life", does not mean that the company will be a stock market success.

Ironicly, a company like MAG might be the company to invest in.

The LED market may not be as lucrative as you'd suspect. While it's taken a new turn that looks promising, it has also taken a turn in the last decade or two that looks a bit more discouraging. The 2 previous primary uses for the LED has been as indicator lights, which is still stable, and segmented readout numerical displays.

Previously displays on calculators were exclusively either fluorescent or LED. The fluorescent were very heavy power consumers, so was losing to the LED in portable units, such as test equipment and calculators. The LED was also power hungry, but less than fluorescent. As a result the LED industry looked extremely promising, since the new field of hand held calculators nearly all were using an LED display. Then came the LCD displays, consuming nearly a negligible amount of power. The hand held calculator, and even the digital display watches couldn't dump the LED fast enough.

Even with the abandonment of the LED display for battery powered equipment displays, the market could still depend on the direct AC powered equipment. The power requirement was of little concern there. Also, the more legible bright display segments permitted easier viewing more quickly, particularly at a distance by use of segment size that fit the need. The LCD display, while more versatile in shaping of the segments and images lacked the contrast of a lit LED, leaving them less desirable in many situations.

Now, with the luminescent advances and capabilities in lighting the backgrounds behind the LCD displays, the advantages to the less versatile LED segments are lessening. The LCD can even be produced as screens of pixels permitting versatile changing high resolution images.

While the LED market isn't crashing, it does definitely need to explore more deeply such markets as lighting. The power demands of the LED while high in contrast to the LCD, is quite low in contrast to incandescent lighting. The rapid advances in lighting may not be the great technical advance it appears, as much as it's a search for new directions.

The LED market may just be seeing the writing on the wall, and it's written with an LCD.

No need for alarm though. LCD flashlights do not appear very promising.

Existing LED technology seems to be stuck at a 5 Watt brick wall. To get greater brightness, you need to spend a lot more money by adding more LEDs. Right now, LEDs solve problems only in niche markets.

If it can be developed further, tungsten lattice technology developed at Sandia Labs may be the 'next big thing' if it can be scaled up to provide as much illumination as standard tungsten filaments. It promises a 12-fold improvement in efficiency, from 5% to 60%, reducing overall electrical power consumption by about 10%.

http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2002/tungsten.htm

To the person who asked about Lumileds: apparently it's a Philips/Agilent spinoff. Philips and Agilent are both publicly traded companies. Agilent is one of the two pieces that HP split into a couple of years ago (the HP name stayed with the part that made consumer-visible stuff like printers; Agilent is the part that makes stuff like LED's and test equipment).

Whilst LED's might be the future, do you really think that Lumiled's or Nichia will ever be every day business names ?

Chances are that another company with better business sense will come along and take all the credit for making LED's an integral part of comercial lighting applications.

My justification for saying this :

Nichia : their products are very good (but very expensive) yet they really don't seem to want to saturate the market with them do they ? Try buying some of Nichia LED's direct from Nichia, there are plenty of articles on this BB where people have mentioned their success with this, you will need a large minimum order quantity, and even then the price is still high.

Lumileds : Their Luxeon Stars are the dogs b*ll*cks, but are like rocking horse droppings to get hold of, Even corporate buyers wishing for large quantities have difficulty aquiring them, and then they can not be guaranteed to be the quality they desire.

Basically what is needed is a company that manufactures LED's that understands the importance of consistent quality, customer satisfaction and competitive pricing structures.

I have seen Agilent mentioned, I have used their Amber LED's on many occasions and found their luminous efficiency to be fantastic, and their consistency to also be good. If they were to repeat this success with white LED's then the likes of Nichia would have severe problems.

[ QUOTE ]
UK Owl said:

I have seen Agilent mentioned, I have used their Amber LED's on many occasions and found their luminous efficiency to be fantastic, and their consistency to also be good. If they were to repeat this success with white LED's then the likes of Nichia would have severe problems.



[/ QUOTE ]

Lumileds is a joint venture of Agilent Technologies and Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV.

Dan