Bus-ness as usual

Relentless rumormongering that REFR and SPD were going to make a big splash at the Tokyo Motor Show this month proved accurate... sort of.

According to a REFR press release, SPD glass was a feature in one of four concept vehicles unveiled by Hino Motors, a subsidiary of Toyota.

For Hino's part, their announcement of the display does eventually get around to mentioning glass with variable transparency, though for some reason it is referred to as "photochromatic", which SPD definitely is not.

Perhaps something was lost in translation, but what is most emphatically not lost, is the uncanny resemblance to the Setra rollout of four years ago, with the primary difference being that the Hino bus is a clearly labeled a concept vehicle, while Setra's bus supposedly had a small production run. (Although if so, REFR is still waiting for its royalty check from that.)

The market in REFR being what it is, of course, the stock instantly soared more than 10% to multi-year highs on the release. But a funny thing happened on the way to the $20 level that seemed inevitable early on this morning. Very quickly, the sell-the-news reaction kicked in. Rather startlingly, the stock gave back the whole rise inside of two hours, and actually finished in the red for the day. Maybe the investors with longer memories recalled that right after the Setra announcement, REFR stock hit a peak that it would go on to crash 75% from, and not recover for years.

One thing seems certain, the actual event paled in comparison to the months of endless message board hype that preceded it.

The newest licensee

Apparently Joe Harary's two-day swing through Texas had a purpose after all. What appeared to be a complete non-event (and was reported as such by attendees from the message boards) had a bit of a sting in the tail in the form of a new licensee in the Houston area, Craftsman Fabricated Glass.

A quick browse of the company site shows that Craftsman isn't so hot in terms of web presence. Their website, dated with a 2005 copyright, still has many "under construction" page stubs. This of course does not automatically mean they're not competent at their core business, but it definitely suggests they're not exactly a big time player, more like on the order of a Custom Glass, only in a larger local market.

Of course, the market, as is its wont these days, has just gone nuts on the news, running back up near the highs after a fairly steep pullback over the prior few days.

What must surely frustrate the shorts in this stock is how the stock just gaily runs up to the moon with no apparent expectations of the company actually producing any kind of revenues, much less profits. BUT... there may be a end to this tunnel vision in sight. At the Dallas luncheon Wednesday, Harary is reported to have announced a "small amount" of royalty income for the third quarter of this year, a "large amount" for the fourth quarter, and big-time growth through next year. So it's basically on the fourth-quarter report in February or early March to show something, or REFR will have finally, officially disappointed.

The blog plans to be here to see it happen. How about you?

Asensio back on the scene

Manuel Asensio, high-profile critic of REFR in years past, came back to the topic after a year's silence, with a release slamming Gene Marical's hype-ridden article from last summer. Asensio makes up for the relative tardiness of his response with some interesting information about the relationship between Marcial and REFR, specifically the fact that Marcial wrote about REFR back in 1995, then hyping licenses Japan Steel Works and Sanyo, and forecasting a buyout by General Electric.

Marcial and his employer Business Week are the focus of the release, but the article is still a good read for anyone looking for insight into stock promotion in the press.

The great debut... again

Never let it be said that Research Frontiers is not a green-conscious company.

In addition to the number of ways in which they attempt to cast their technology as environmentally friendly (as well as nanotechnological, security-enhancing, or whatever the hot trend of the day is), they walk the walk as well, being very heavy into recycling. So much so that it even extends to their licensees' press releases.

Today Isoclima announced they were taking SPD on the trade show circuit. Now, my question to you is, does this sound familiar at all?

It should.

To Isoclima's credit, the new PR doesn't entirely come off as a copy-and-paste of the one from two years ago, even though there are some aspects of it that are very similar: they specify the size of the sample being toured (larger than the one two years ago), and mentioned their future plans for film width (surprisingly, smaller than two years ago). In other news, they seem to have settled on a spelling for their brand name: the no-H version.

One sidelight of interest is the insight into the process this PR provides. Dainippon, though licensed to sell film and emulsion, is only sending Isoclima the raw production chemicals, an activity that doesn't even make use of their license. One might well gather from this that Dainippon is not as committed to the SPD infrastructure as some licensees.

But of course none of this matters a whit as REFR soars to new multi-year highs on this recycled news. That's life in the world of stock promotion for you.

The Beechcraft boondoggle

REFR's stock has made a full recovery from the faceplant of a few weeks back, spurred on at least in part by its appearance on the Nasdaq SHO list, which, in some circles is apparently used as a speculative list of potential short squeeze targets. So we wish the would-be squeezers rotsa ruck with that endeavor.

But in the meantime, on the home front, an interesting new development is coming to light with regard to the after-market SPD shades from Hawker-Beechcraft (then Raytheon Aircraft) whose announcement spurred the stock into the tizzy it has remained in to this day.

It started fairly innocuously with a post by "rikes_of_hell" claiming to have contacted Beechcraft and found that the shades were unavailable. Now, normally this would devolve into a "he said, he said" that proves nothing either way, but a funny thing happened on the way to the denial. Posted "spd_where_you_look", (obviously) a big REFR bull, actually confirmed the shades' unavailability, by way of making the excuse that film was being diverted to other, more important (yet somehow entirely invisible) projects, and that film for the shades would come available sometime this month.

Now, if the diversion excuse rings familiar, it should -- it was used to excuse REFR/Inspectech's failure to win the Boeing 787 business, even though, as we now know, there was no film production at all, much less massive amounts being diverted to projects more important than the 787(!!)

Still, it's a rather amusing state of affairs on a lot of levels. The entire current run in REFR's stock was kicked off by the Raytheon/Beechcraft announcement last February, and was the target of article after article highlighting how this was REFR's big breakthrough into the market. And now we learn that the shades were not, in fact available and have yet to be?

Fortunately for shareholders, with the latest run propelling the stock back near its highs, there's no need to apply for a refund when you can still cash out almost certainly with a healthy profit. Or... you can hold out for the Next Big Thing, a rumor of an announcement at next month's Tokyo Motor Show, which may, or, given even the most recent track record of this company, may very well not happen.

It's your call, shareholders!

Options revisited

I'm sure almost nobody among the few people reading this blog is really into the minutiae of options. I personally find the topic a combination of boring and mystifying, and I consider myself more into things involving numbers than most people. Still, with the alternatives being lapsing back into radio silence or dissecting the message board's collective inability to parse the latest short interest figures properly, there really are no attractive options (pardon the expression) here.

But I do have to say that I find it a little odd that, even though the stock is trading around $11 at the moment, thus making the nearest strike price $10, there is zero activity on current options at the $10 strike, with $12.50 being the "mainstream" price instead.

Now, I'm sure there's a hundred different ways to spin this phenomenon, many of them directly contradictory, so I'm far from suggesting my personal take is the "correct" one. But it seems to me that the stands being taken are kind of a reflection of the contrast in styles of the opposing sides of this stock. The bears are content to sit back and exert whatever influence they have from a distance, accepting that any further decline in this stock is likely to be gradual (the events of the week before last notwithstanding), and that little is to be gained from placing a bet that can be lost by running out the clock.

The bulls, in contrast, are going all out, betting strictly out of the money and willing to lose their bets if the stock doesn't rebound and soon.

And yet, basically, the stock itself meanders.

I think that might say a thing or two about the direction of the path of least resistance right now.

Gagging on something

You don't need me to tell you the stock market's been shaky the past few weeks to say the least. But today REFR got hit particularly hard today, down as much as 22%, and did not entirely rebound with the market, finishing down 13.6%.

Stranger still, the usual message board catcalls that this is all pressure from shortsellers, while not entirely absent, was considerably muted. In its place was this oblique complaint from one poster:

"HAVE YOU SEEN THE CRAP THAT SPD'S COMPETITORS ARE TRYING TO SELL ??? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A CAR WITH PUKEY WHITE WINDOWS? THEY ARE CALLED GAG MOBILES SINCE YOU WANT TO PUKE WHEN YOU SEE ONE. DON'T WORRY THEY WILL NEVER SELL IN A MILLION YEARS."

No one else on the boards is admitting to having much of an idea what this was about, and this blog has so far struck out as well. But if it's some kind of competition for SPD, that may have even gained traction with an auto maker, that certainly spells trouble for REFR, and might help explain the heightened panic today.

Anyone out there have any idea what these "gag mobiles" are actually called? Support your local blog and give me a heads up!

The latest 10-ZZZZ filing

Or at least that's the form the SEC should require REFR to use, as yet another quarter of complete uneventfulness is officially put on the books, hype regarding production at Hitachi notwithstanding. Income was actually slightly down from the second quarter of last year, although operating expenses were also lower, resulting in a loss of only about $735,000, REFR's narrowest quarterly loss since 2000.

Of course, before any shareholder preens over this success, it bears pointing out that REFR's net margin for the quarter remains at -1285%. Coincidentally, REFR's price/sales ratio is in the same ballpark on the positive side, most recently pegged at 1298.

None of these results come as a surprise to shareholders, at least as far as they will admit, as the "production delays" at Hitachi, which were of course all their fault and furthermore in no way reflect adversely on demand for the film, nosiree, apparently made the realizing of revenues in the mere five months since film production was announced, a virtual impossibility.

It will be interesting to see what the rationalization will be for similar failures in the third quarter. Will the royalty lag time be stretched out to eight months? Will the "technology subscription" payments from Hitachi be used to mask the lack of revenue from product sales?

Will someone, anyone, step forward and offer an SPD-based product for sale to the general market?

I wouldn't bet on it.

Now if you'll excuse me I think I'll go back to bed.

Options update: 11 more lots of calls opened today. 10 March 17.50 calls at the ask (money in the bank to be sure -- but for whom?), and a single December 15 call at the bid. So apparently at least one REFR shareholder is sophisticated enough to be familiar with the concept of writing covered calls.

Weighing the options, finding them lacking

The Chicago Board Options Exchange, which has been phasing options contracts on all manner of listed symbols that previously did not trade options, has added options on REFR starting today.

What seemed at first blush to be an intriguing twist in the trading strategies surrounding this tightly-controlled stock, however, has, at least in the early going, proven to be a complete bust. The spread between bid and ask on all contracts, excepting those with zero bids, is at least 75 cents, and volume is a flat zero across the board.

There had been hopes on both the bullish and bearish side that the listing of options might add some much needed liquidity to this stock, but clearly the verdict today is, not so much.

Until Yahoo! add options for REFR to its quote pages (shouldn't be more than a couple of days, based on other recent CBOE option listings), you can check activity on the CBOE site here. For now, at least, there's very little to see. We'll be checking back later to see if a day of greater stock activity has any residual effect in the option exchange.

Update: The first trade in REFR options came just over two hours into the first trading day, a trade (presumably a purchase) of two August 15 calls at 65 cents each. As options represent 100-share blocks, that's a $130 trade. The following two hours have been silent on the options front, presumably to recover from that blistering flurry of activity.

The media blitz continues

Any doubts that REFR is in a deliberate attempt to get noticed and get noticed quickly have now fallen by the wayside with yet another puff-piece article about them, this time by Emily Pickrell in New York Newsday.

This particular article is really quite amazing, as it seems almost carefully written to include as much stock-promotional hoohah as could be fit into the column space.

"It's a thrill," said Saxe. "If you spend 40 years of your life building something and it does not work out, people will say you're a stubborn fool...."

Aw, poor guy. If this doesn't work out, all he'll be left with is a long career during which he made anything up to nearly a half-million dollars a year in just salary alone, and that doesn't even include profits from options.

"SPD glass is the holy grail of glass that architects have been clamoring for for years," said [Steve Abadi].

I guess it does have one thing in common with the legendary vessel, in that few ever even get to look upon it.

Abadi goes on to claim SPD as a "green" technology, whatever they or anyone else means by that anymore, and then, hilariously, the article plugs the Popular Science award from 2002, without mentioning how all that applied to the old, failed, SPD Inc. version of the technology.

At this point, the article moves on into it's "cautionary" section, making a threadbare attempt to not look like the puff piece it is. REFR, per the article, has "annual operating expenses of approximately $3 million", and "operating losses of roughly $4 million per year." That's a heck of a good trick, managing to lose more money on operations than you spend on operations. Summing up: "lack of sales until recently means the company is still waiting to see a profit." Wow, there's some brilliant analysis.

But enough of that, back to the laughable stock promotion cliches! "If SPD glass is were used for even 1 percent of world glass sales..." It's at this point that I suspect Ms. Pickrell must be a highly inexperienced reporter to have not heard that old saw, a suspicion that seems to be the case. Given that my heart goes out to her, being used in such a way so early in her career.

Moving on, the Beechcraft arrangement is of course plugged, minus the fact that Raytheon is no longer associated with that company.

Ms. Pickrell does note that the message board chatter on REFR is "mixed at best", but the only specific criticism she cites is delays in getting product to market, not the myriad misrepresentations the company has made over the years.

Possibly saddest of all is a shareholder she managed to find, who is quoted as saying, "I wish I had more money to buy more stock."

Cashing in again

Once again REFR CEO Joe Harary has collected another sweet paycheck over and above the rather substantial salary he collects for running this nearly operations-free company. This time the score was over $350,000, and could have been more had he not generously gifted 7,000 shares, about another $100,000 worth, to an undisclosed party.

The timing of this option exercise and sale, literally days after a mention in Gene Marical's Inside Wall Street column bounced the stock as much as 15% on the day of its online release, naturally raises a couple of eyebrows, even as the general population on the message boards seems congratulatory if anything. Of more interest is the fact that the AP even found the sale worthy of mention. For a company that has made a living flying under the radar this may prove to be some unwelcome attention, particularly if the current prices fail to hold at some point in the near future.

The Marcial Plan

A lot of focus has been placed on the nature of the column penned by Gene Marcial, such as this week's entry featuring REFR. Now, normally, such analysis smacks of attacking the messenger and doesn't have much of a place in serious discussion, but in Marcial's case the consensus is so clear and uniform it's worth nothing.

Marcial's column, by reputation, is the modern form of the old "tip sheet". It basically gives a "quick hit" on a stock, either as a growth story or an acquisition target. Frequently, the stock, like REFR, has already made a big run, but the suggestion is inevitably made that "it's not too late to get in". And, almost without exception, the featured stock makes a big run on Friday, the day after the article comes out. Again, REFR follows the model to a tee.

Subsequently, the performance of the stock is, sadly but not surprisingly, not so hot. To be sure, Marcial does pick the occasional true winner (blind squirrels and all that), but on the whole, one day after a Marcial column has the reputation of being one of the worst times to buy a given stock.

So far, as I said, REFR is acting little different, running up big on the Marcial article and then subsequently going nowhere. We'll of course be watching to see how things unfold.

I've had it suggested to me that Bob Saxe arranged for last week's article, but the fact that Marcial managed to find a portfolio manager willing to sound enthusiastic about REFR suggests to me that the article is at least partially not his doing. Others have suggested that this might be a cynical ploy on Robin Manners West's part to get out of an ill-thought-out position in one piece. That would be rather blatantly unethical if true, to the point where the SEC might even notice, so I tend to doubt it, but it should be noted that other fund managers have done exactly that in the past, so the possibility can't be completely discounted.

Comment lines are now open!

What with REFR now breaking into the "big time", at least for the moment, I figure it's about time to let the world have its say. Try to keep the comments thoughtful; I don't need this turning into a clone of the Yahoo! board where the standard response to everything is to claim to know everything but say nothing.

Apart from that, have at me!

Getting down to Business Week

Just as the momentum behind REFR's precipitous rise was flagging, out comes a very timely article in Business Week by Gene Marcial in his "Inside Wall Street" segment. The article appears to be essentially the result of an interview with Robin Manners West, portfolio manager of the New Mexico State Investment Council, and a frequent subject of his column.

Marcial's article cites nothing that has not already been noted in this blog, which already drove the stock from $5 to $15, yet forecasts a $35 price target and profitability by the January 2009 on expectations that licensees Air Products and DuPont will "sign up", whatever that means. The best that this blogger can guess is that West expects to fund itself solely from licensing out subscriptions to its technology. The cited 18-month time frame is also an interesting one, in that it is one favored by long-time REFR promoter R. J. Falkner.

The article does admit that there remains no analyst following for REFR, although it does list Fidelity among "early" investors, even though their position does not as yet appear on the Nasdaq website.

Looks like it game on, as far as the war over the stock goes. As for the company itself, that remains to be seen.

Hitachi on the hook, stock price off the hook

REFR actually managed to come out with some moderately surprising news this morning, announcing that they had, effectively, sold a subscription to Hitachi Chemical for two years' worth of upgrades to SPD technology.

Never a company to ever play it completely straight, the deal was announced as being valued at "96 million yen", forcing the reader to go find a conversion table and discover that that comes to a bit under $800,000.

While this is by no means REFR's ticket to profitability in and of itself, it does show that REFR has managed to gain Hitachi's trust to the point where they are willing to give them an advance on future technology upgrades.

It's frankly a little mystifying that a company like Hitachi could view the rate of progress REFR has dragged through over the course of over 40 years, and expect the next two years to produce advances worth paying for, but then again REFR's having lasted this long in such a way is no minor miracle in itself.

At any rate, the stock is reacting as you might expect, attaching as much as $20 million in value to REFR for an $800,000 deal. But such things are liable to happen when you are in your own private market bubble, as REFR seems to be.

Notes from the Fox Hollow Inn

Long-time message board poster "ed_wesnofske" posted his report today on last Thursday's REFR annual meeting. The full text of his notes can be found here and here.

In addition to John Petraglia's presentation, there was a slide show presentation by Steve Abadi of Innovative Glass. Essentially, this consisted of a visual tour of that company's facilities, as well as two SPD projects it has reportedly completed.

Now, granted, two projects is better than none, but we've seen projects from this company before (viz. the Extreme Makeover link above) which have utterly failed to even show up in REFR's income statements, so we'll remain skeptical of the significance of this one as well, until proven otherwise.

Since Jim Lang of Inspectech apparently couldn't make it, it fell to Joe Harary to deliver the report on the aerospace market. Apparently the reason shades are only available on King Air is because SPD is not certified for any other models at present.

Harary's "speculation" on the royalty rates for different applications is of interest. Apparently the outsized expenses in developing an aircraft window would translate into outsized royalties for REFR. This is a double-edged sword, of course: it makes the aerospace market quite potentially lucrative should it catch on, but at the same time, the huge royalty upcharge will hamper that market's viability.

On to the questions from the shareholders. First, someone wants to see another SPD Industry Conference. Given that the last one was hastily put together in order to start things from square one in the wake of the collapse of SPD Inc., I'm not sure why.

The second one inquired about the architectural market. The posted Ed posted doesn't seem to actually answer the question, but whether that's a transcription glitch or a company evasion can't really be determined.

The last one invoked accountability for last year's projections, and was met with the predictable "it's not our fault" response. And with the the formal portion of the meeting concluded.

The trailing (informal) notes were of passing interest. Hitachi's samples have been used for testing; nothing new there. Isoclima currently plans to get back in the game later this year -- what, exactly, have they been waiting for? And Dainippon is using "toll coaters", a fancy way of saying they're outsourcing all SPD production work. To whom, exactly, wasn't specified.

Now, granted, this is a rather cynical summary of Ed's postings, but experience has shown the cynical view to be an excellent starting point in parsing the comments made by this company's management. That said, the stock market has taken a decidedly non-cynical view since the meeting, but that is what it is.

Private equity shutout

I've already made plenty hay over SPD Control Systems's scrambles for operating capital, but I wanted to share this presentation I came across from last year. The link is to an HTML representation of a Powerpoint slideshow presented by SCSC at "Private Equity XVI", a dog-and-pony show for venture capitalists and their would-be fundees, which took place back on June 22, 2006. So if nothing else, this shows that the licensee with the brightest spotlight in the REFR universe has been on the fund-raising trail for quite some time, without much success.

And you will note that this presentation, like the one from the annual meeting, is easily available for public view despite being labeled "confidential". That doesn't seem to speak too well of their security policy.

Mum's the word

The shareholders came back from yesterday's annual meeting and the reviews are... rather few and far between actually. The only thing of substance reported is the presentation by the man we can only presume was the keynote speaker, John Petraglia of SPD Control Systems. You can actually find what is apparently a transcript of his speech (along with select "confidential" Powerpoint slides) from yesterday on SCSC's website (PDF format).

Yes, that's the same SPD Control Systems that recently completed a round of financing from "close friends, family, and colleagues" , with another $150K to come from REFR pending the fulfillment of certain milestones. One can't help but wonder if the speech wasn't one of the milestones.

No word yet on the fate of the shareholder proposal to get fresh blood on the board of directors, although presumably it went down to massive defeat. After all, who in their right mind could possibly be dissatisfied with company performance like this?

REFR's latest great investment

So REFR files another quarterly report, and, surprise surprise, for all the hype about production and products, the revenue meter remains planted firmly on "minimum license fees only" mark. On this occasion, the number happens to be $29,792. Interestingly, the company also recorded "investment income" of $56,834, meaning, it would seem, that the company's money is bearing more fruit elsewhere than at the company itself. There's a lesson for investors, I think.

But REFR's successful investment streak probably won't last much longer. Buried on page 10 of the quarterly report (yet somehow pinpointed almost instantly by supposedly casual, unconnected investors), REFR mentions an investment of "up to" $150,000 in one of its licensees, SPD Control Systems.

SPD Control Systems is a rather unusual licensee in a lot of ways. For one thing, there's no obvious reason why they would need a license. Their devices appear to be of their own making, and certainly not connected to any SPD patent. So it's not at all clear what SPD Control Systems is licensing here.

Another oddity is the company's location, in the "Long Island High Technology Incubator" on the campus of SUNY-Stony Brook. Is this a corporation or an academic research project?

Despite these obviously humble digs, SPD Control Systems makes some very weird claims in an edition of the company newsletter, seemingly not coincidentally published to coincide exactly with REFR's quarterly filing. So much so that they actually reference the filing in mentioning the investment from REFR. Way to keep up a pretense of independence, there.

Among the claims are "facilities in over 22 countries and 50+ locations, any of which can be utilized as a manufacturing site for product delivery in regional markets." Really, now. If SPD Control Systems has facilities in "over 22" (so, 23?) countries, you'd think that they could use one of them for office space, rather than having to mooch off a local university.

No, much more likely this claim is akin to the completion centers claimed by Inspectech as a way of making themselves seem a lot larger than they actually were. Inspectech, as we know, was a two-man operation that soon after became one-man, yet still boasted "hundreds of completion centers" as if the company had any kind of ownership relationship to any of them.

Also of note is the headline of the funding announcement: "SCSC Receives RFI and Angel Venture Capital". One might be led to think that "Angel" refers to some kind of institutional name. Because otherwise, why capitalize it, right? But in fact, the paragraph below defines the "angels" in questions as "close friends, family, and colleagues". Sounds like they learned their fund-raising techniques from Woodbury.

A proxy upon thee

A sidelight of note in the notice for this year's annual meeting is a proposal made by a shareholder, to have the board of directors expand to add two new members, preferably ones significantly below the board's median age of 71. The proposal, admittedly a bit naively written in some ways, is opposed by the board, and as such is almost surely doomed.

That said, the language in both the proposal and the company's response do provide some interesting insight into the mindsets of both parties.

The shareholder proposal, at times, reads like something crafted by stock promoter R. J. Falkner, stating, "It is expected that the licensing revenues generated over the next year and beyond will grow significantly," a statement far bolder than the company has produced in recent years. Still, the overall sentiment of the proposal is a reasonable enough one, a demand that the board, for once, get off the dime and get some fresh blood that will be able to manage the "expected" growth.

The company's response primarily takes issue with the six-month time frame suggested for the board augmentation, as well as the vague guideline of "significantly below 70 years of age" for the new board members. The company complains of the "increased difficulty in finding qualified people", saying they have been searching for two years for new directors without success, and that six more months is simply not enough time to guarantee locate two suitable candidates. (Then again, the way this company moves, six months may not be enough time to make coffee.) And I would additionally point out that, what with the state of EEOC regulations these days, it may not even be legitimate to screen new directors by age.

On the other hand, a seemingly overlooked aspect of the proposal is that its language is distinctly non-binding, merely "advising" the board augmentation and that the new directors "should" be relatively younger than most of the current ones. Then again, this company doesn't seem to have much of a track record of being amenable to advice anyway, given how little about this company has changed over the past couple of decades.

Bottom line, we have the overly optimistic shareholder, still on board with the notion that good times are right around the corner for the company, but simply wanting a little accountability, and the company board and management, quite satisfied with the status quo and not particularly interested in input from the shareholders.

To be continued at the annual meeting.

Another year in the books

...and yet another year of nothing notable in terms of results. For all the excitement generated by the Hitachi and Dainippon presentations back in June, results have, to put it kindly, completely failed to reflect any change from the status quo established over the past four decades. The only thing different is the share price, and that's different every year anyway.

But not to worry, REFR fans! This year is the year! Again.

The newest old licensee

REFR stock got another juice Monday on the news of a new licensee: SmartGlass International. That is, except for the "new" part.

Perusing past the main text of the release, under the heading "About SmartGlass International, Ltd.", wherein one normally finds a bland boilerplate company description, one here find this interesting note:

"The company was founded after meeting at the first Research Frontiers Licensees' Conference in 2004 when the Directors of Vision (Environmental Innovation) Ltd., based in the UK, and Smart Glass Ireland decided to join forces to launch a global SmartGlass product range for the end-user architectural market."

If one of those names seem familiar to dedicated readers of this blog, they should. Relative newcomers can simply follow the link embedded in the above paragraph. And needless to say, SmartGlass Ireland was, like Vision, already an SPD licensee prior to the merger.

So, in fact, this event is nothing more or less than the consolidation of two licenses into one. And for that the market rewarded REFR with a 15% share price boost. Which certainly makes one wonder about the intelligence of the market currently in this stock.

As an addendum, the licensee list on REFR's website was shortened by another entry sometime in the not-too-distant past. General Electric, a ballyhooed licensee from the mid-90's, which has been dormant for a full decade, no longer appears on the list.

The secret of their non-success

An enterprising fellow on the Yahoo! boards recently reveals a scan he made of an estimate received on SPD "ThermaLite" window from Thermoview. It really kind of speaks for itself...


... but to review (and in case the print is too small for you), that's a hair under $21,000 (plus sales tax), for ten 24" x 36" SPD windows. Not particularly big windows! Oh, and that doesn't including shipping. From Korea. (Because it's not as if Thermoview believed in the product enough to keep an inventory on hand). And best of all, installation? That's your problem! Good luck finding someone to do it.

Small wonder, then, that sales of Alterlite windows were, shall we say, less than robust.

The question arises, therefore, whether the current offering of SPD shades from Raytheon Aircraft is in fact any more affordable. Unfortunately, that's a question currently without an answer. Though you'd think at least lip service would be made to the idea of improved affordability, were that in fact the case.

Payday!

Yesterday, in the middle the mild camouflage of a renewed flurry of tiny purchases by board member and former SPD message-board evangelist Al Malvino, REFR president and COO Joe Harary cashed in quite lucratively on the recent surge in the share price of his company's stock.

Per the SEC filing on the transaction, Harary exercised just over 100,000 options, using the proceeds from the majority of the shares to leave himself with 34,792 shares free and clear, which he promptly proceeded to sell at about $10.10 per share, thus pocketing a neat little bonus of just over $350,000. A sum that, it bears noting, is more than the company earned in license fee revenue (to say nothing of earnings) from the years 2004 and 2005 combined.

Meanwhile, today, investors in REFR (and to be fair, almost everywhere else) are taking it on the chin big time, as the offering price of $9.75 appears to have been decisively breached (not that there was any real support at that level anyway).

If nothing else, it sure tells you where this company's management's priorities really lie.

The other shoe drops

Another group of anonymous "accredited" investors, apparently acting upon an urge to pay as much as they conceivably could for shares of REFR, gave Joe Harary and company and big "I Love You" this Valentine's Day by gifting the profitless company another $6.65 million, by purchasing nearly 700,000 shares at $9.75 each. Given that that is a price level reached last week for the first time in almost three years, and that REFR's price was barely more than half that just over a month earlier, and that the events leading to the sudden spike in price are far from guarantees that anything will change with regard to REFR's profitability, it's hard not to conclude that this is more about keeping REFR solvent at any cost than it is about actually making money on the shares purchased.

Regardless, the check's been cashed and REFR will be with us on into the next presidential administration. I tend to expect that there won't be much to report now that the mission has been accomplished, but just in case we'll keep an eye on things.

A Raytheon of hope?

If you've been following REFR this past week you don't need me to tell you that the stock's had a lot of action in the past week, soaring to price highs not seen since the beginning of this blog almost two years ago. Just as the momentum was fading from the prior week's news regarding delivery of an unspecified amount of film to a small licensee, up pops a new release (links to PDF) from no less than Raytheon Aircraft, saying that they will market Inspectech's shading systems to their base of 6200 King Air private aircraft owners.

Needless to say, the notion of "Raytheon's selling SPD!" has invigorated the longs and spooked the shorts and long story short the REFR's share price has more than doubled from the beginning of the year -- all before the first sale has even been made.

And therein lies at least the beginnings of the catch in this tale. Splashy PR's aside (as one source noted, somewhat suspiciously including REFR's stock symbol in the text of the release itself), there's no way of knowing what kind of actual sales effort is going to go to a market that caps out at a few thousand installations. Now, you might answer by suggesting that this might only be a prelude to a wider-scale rollout, but if that's the case, then why not be upfront that this is a test market? (Not to mention how REFR needs cash now, and can't be comfortable waiting for the results of a test marketing effort to come in.)

Another point of interest. While Raytheon Aircraft carries a splashy name, it won't for long. Raytheon Aircraft is in the process of being sold to Onex Partners, a Toronto holding company, whereupon the company will change its name to Hawker Beechcraft. (A name, as an aside, which leaves one to wonder about the future of the King Air product line.)

At any rate, with an imminent merger and subsequent reorganization looming, there's really no assurance that this arrangement will even survive more than a few months. But of course, that message is completely lost in the middle of the mini-mania going on over the shares of this tiny patent company in Woodbury, NY. Such is the way of the world, I guess.

Morning!

The story of Research Frontiers, which frankly had been getting intolerably boring as of late, sprang to life this morning as the company issued its first press release in many months.

Actually that's not quite accurate. The press release came from REFR licensee Innovative Glass, in conjunction with its film supplier, Hitachi Chemical. The big news? Hitachi shipped some film to Innovative. That's it. Oh, to be sure, it was puffed up with a lot of long-winded comments about how great the film is and what might be done with it and so on, but the substance of the PR was nothing more than an unidentified amount of film being shipped from Hitachi Chemical's Silicon Valley plant to Innovative's Long Island location. Given the past history of such shipments, (viz. the entire sorry SPD Inc. saga) there is little reason to get excited at this point.

So naturally, this drove the price of REFR shares up as much as 51% to a peak of $9.75 late this morning. This may have been abetted by a piece on a non-coincidentally timed piece on Briefing.com that stated, in effect, "we've never heard of this company, but this news sounds great to us!" Sounds more like a reason to cancel my subscription to them, frankly.

Private board engages in auto fellatio

A new clue may have surfaced in response to the mystery of the newsless spike in the price of REFR stock a month ago, by way of explaining the similar short-lived spike experienced this week. Apparently someone with a bearish view of the stock has managed to infiltrate one of the "private boards" REFR shareholders use to share "information" (read: rumors and speculation) free of annoyances such as requests for supporting evidence and other fiendish acts of skepticism.

This infiltrator came public with information that the most recent hype on the board related to the Los Angeles Auto Show, where, the rumor had it, an auto manufacturer was going to unveil SPD as an official feature of one of their vehicles. Details were sketchy, and there remains the open question of how this would be any more of a big deal than the last time SPD showed up at at auto show, but expecting strong logic from this company's shareholder base has long proven futile.

Shortly after that report came out, another poster quickly noticed that the last spike coincided with the SEMA show in Las Vegas, another ostensibly likely forum for SPD automotive technology making a debut. Of course, it did not happen there either.

But no matter, I'm sure the regulars on the private board are quietly telling themselves. There's always the NAIAS in Detroit next month after all.

It's really a devilishly tempting logic behind the whole cycle of rumor. The key is that the rumors are always made big enough that, if they're actually borne out, it would render irrelevant the entire history of failed rumors of the past. Thus, we have a group of shareholders constantly on the hook, just one tantalizing rumor away from enormous wealth, constantly exciting themselves and each other over the possibility that the next one just might be the one that comes through for them.

P. T. Barnum would be proud.

So what was that all about?

REFR longs and supporters were feeling their oats for much of the past week as the share price surged past the momentarily stable level of around $5.50 up to a high of $6.82 on Friday. Since there were no new reported developments on any front, the assumption was that there was a leak of some kind of something that would be officially released in short order.

Then, one uneventful weekend later, the stock suddenly throws it into reverse, dropping as low as $5.55 on the following Tuesday.

So what was that all about? Darn good question. One clue is found on the REFR website, mentioning how Joe Harary had made a presentation to the Susquehanna Financial Group Emerging Trends Conference on Wednesday the 1st. That would certainly account for the timing of the spike but not really the magnitude. Supposedly these were somewhat sophisticated attendees ("fund managers, analysts, and others") at this conference, who you would think would hardly be the types to chase the stock up 25% on nothing more than a presentation from the CEO.

Were there false rumors of new releases? Were the Susquehanna attendees really that ham-handed in their buying of REFR? Were there some kind of expectations for the upcoming quarterly report that were remanded over the weekend? These and other questions... probably won't ever be answered fully. But it's still fun to ask them.

Back for seconds

REFR actually managed to pull of a bit of a surprise last week with their latest press release. Not with the subject referred to in the headline, which actually took second billing in the text of the release proper. Though I have to say I find it interesting that Joe Harary will spare no expense to go overseas and check up on the film supplier licensees, even though they have rarely if ever been the problem with the overall business model, yet apparently getting any kind of status update from end-product licensees like Steve Abadi's Innovative Glass, just a few miles down the road, is not within the company's budget.

No, the real highlight of the PR, smartly placed first despite not being the "headline" subject, is the decision of some of the investors from the August placement to step up and drop another $700K into REFR's coffers. This no doubt had to be a bit of a demoralizer for short sellers in REFR, who are now faced with unknown, anonymous benefactors who, for all they know, might be of a mind to fund the company indefinitely out of nothing more than spite for those betting against it. This, in my view, may have triggered some taking of profits on the short side, and the resultant upswing in share price. We will know more next week when the updated short interest figures are published.

Still, REFR officially has only one year of cash remaining as of now, meaning that if they want to avoid the "going concern" clause in the upcoming 10-K this winter, they need to find a home for about another 150,000 shares between now and December 31st. Just how willing and able are our new investors to keep things propped up? Only time will tell...

Getting under Second Skin

So SPD is getting shown off at yet another show. I suppose it's comforting to know that, in these times of financial uncertainty at the company, that management still knows how to stick to what works. That is, if you define "works" to mean, "doesn't trigger immediate public scorn or lead to the creation of new enemies of the company".

What's interesting (for relatively lax definitions of the term) about this particular display is that, rather than placing SPD as a technological marvel, as with the Smart Garage and Juno exhibits, this one caters to the arts crowd.

Admittedly, I am less than an expert on what excites the people who will go to this
kind of a show, so I can't assert positively that this is a bust in the making, but to my layman's eye, the SPD exhibit is pretty bland relative to some of the really off-the-wall stuff being paraded around at this show. Follow this slideshow to see what I mean.

Still, if the person who decided to sink $2 million to give this company one more chance at life is happy with how his or her money is being spent, who am I to argue?

A message board revolt?

Has something changed on the message boards? As one poster has just noted, the regular "strong-buy" contingent has not yet come back from the weekend. And it's not for a lack of anything to say -- that has certainly not stopped them before.

But even more striking was the appearance of an alias claiming to have participated in the group effort of promoting REFR on the message boards, not merely returning as a critic, but actually providing information on some of the happenings that went on behind-the-scenes among many of the shareholders closest to the company.

Most striking was the mention of a "letter of protest", dated just less than two years ago, with a litany of complaints about managements actions or lack thereof. Quoting the letter (my annotations in italics):

September 29, 2004


(Via E-Mail, Facsimile, and U.S. Mail)
Board of Directors
Research Frontiers Incorporated
240 Crossways Park Drive
Woodbury, New York 11797


Re: Shareholder Suggestions and Inquiries


Dear Directors:

As you are aware, Research Frontiers Incorporated ("RFI") benefits from a core group of extremely loyal shareholders who collectively own a sizable amount of the company's stock. These shareholders have communicated with each other over the years through a variety of forums to share perspectives and analysis of the prospects of the company and their investment in it. Forty-two of us, representing 725,357 shares and many more actual shareholders, are "co-signing" this letter. Should you require a detailed listing of us, we are amenable to providing that under separate cover.

For a considerable period of time, there has been a tone of ongoing frustration with the lack of discernable progress with the core technology and quantifiable progress with sales. This is only made worse by the ongoing oppression by short traders who appear to manipulate the stock almost at will.

As a result, considerable thought has been given to the formulation of a short list identifying our suggestions and inquiries for the company. The following represents a summary of the items that received widespread support from the group.

- RFI should provide a meaningful update on emulsion and/or film production.

(The updates came, in the form of dates of expected delivery, but these came and went with neither action nor explanation; if anything, beyond the date, was another date.)

- RFI should solicit acceptable, printable comments from any and/or all of its licensees relative to their work with SPD.

(That would probably have been amusing had it been done. I suspect the result would have been a medley of "Who are you again?", "Are you ever going to get back to us on...?", and "Kiss off!".)

- RFI should set realistic goals with estimated timelines for accomplishment, state these publicly, and base future compensation for key employees, at least in part, on measurable results.

(That would presume they had any control over the progress of any "accomplishments", or any desire to do so.)

- RFI should differentiate between income from license fees and income that is actually attributable to sales in excess of minimum fees. RFI can do this anonymously.

(In a way, they were already doing this. In the fourth quarter of 2002, REFR "recorded a small amount of royalty income related to sales of licensed products by its licensees ... which exceeded their minimum annual royalty payments." Since this language has not been used since, by implication, this circumstance has not recurred.)

- RFI should publicly declare its intentions to generously reward shareholders through future dividends A) as incentive for current shareholders not to sell, and B) to stimulate new investors to buy.

(This one is rather comical on the letter writers' part. Tell us what we want to hear, even if you don't really mean it, they seem to be saying.)

- RFI should offer a private placement to shareholders in lieu of continued dilution through Ailouros as we believe this practice risks making shares available to shorts in addition to diluting the value of our investments.

(At least there was no further dilution through Ailouros, as they, like Ramius before them and Stark afterward, declined to be the front for any more stock sales. And REFR had the built-in excuse of regulatory issues related to such a sale.)

- RFI should explain what actions, if any, have been taken regarding the investigation of illegal shorting of its stock and the current status of those efforts.

(It's actually a bit surprising that REFR has never attempted to hop back on that bandwagon, given how much press that group has been getting lately. I guess it just goes to show that some things are too low even for this group.)

We hereby formally submit our concerns to the company and hope to receive the courtesy of a thorough and prompt response. You may do so by e-mailing such to the attention of . The response will then be forwarded to all co-signers of this letter.

We wish to congratulate the company on its recent license agreements and look forward to announcements of actual and significant implementations of SPD technology in the near future.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Concerned Shareholders

In the words of our correspondent the letter "didn't do squat. Harary just spewed the same old BS non-answers the company always has." As I have noted, they did get a little bit of what they asked for, but of course, not what they actually wanted.

Stay tuned for the reply from REFR's message board supporters, if and when they ever show up again.

Lowering the bar on raising funds

No doubt Joe Harary would have liked to wait longer before pulling the trigger on the latest round of financing. Selling just over one-quarter of the two million registered shares, yielding only about seven months' worth of additional capital, has to be more than a little embarassing. But with cash having dwindled to approximately $1.5 million, and no institutional interest whatsoever, it basically came down to "take what you can and hope something develops soon".

It's really almost a case of "why bother". REFR still had a million shares (give or take) left over from the last round of financing, meaning that the current round of registered shares effectively went completely unsold. Meanwhile, the cash infusion puts them back to where they were at the start of last February, meaning they're essentially right back on the fund-raising trail almost right away.

Then again, if you could find people willing to front you $2 million no matter how abysmal your track record and regardless of your complete and utter lack of plans for the money other than "pay yourself a mid-six-figure salary while waiting for someone else to make money for the company", would you turn them down?

See you in October for the ramp up of film production at Hitachi... whether it actually happens or not. Bulletins if anything happens in the meantime, of course. But I wouldn't count on it.

The Falkner Follies; Stark Exits Stage Left

This blog last mentioned R. J. Falkner and its research relationship with a number of rather dubious public companies in June of last year. For over a year afterwards, no updates had been forthcoming on Falkner's coverage of REFR. Given the policy as stated on Falkner's research front page that updates typically occur about 3-9 months apart, it seemed reasonable to conclude that Falkner and REFR had had a parting of the ways.

Then last week, a message board posted stumbled across links to a new Falkner research report on REFR. You can scan the content of the report for yourself if you like; it's mostly a regurgitating of every self-promotional effort REFR has made over the past ten years. But what is interesting is the fact that this report is not as yet linked to the website's front page as the other companies' reports are, while the old report has been taken down in place of a stub that gives an executive summary of Falkner's ever-glowing evaluation of REFR, but with next-to-nothing in the way of detail.

One item of interest in the as-yet-unlinked report is a revamped list of the top institutional investors. Most of these are institutions with total-market index funds, meaning they invest in just about anything on the listed markets, which, as of yet, still includes REFR. But the list is already out of date: the top institution on the list, Botti Brown, just reported having sold 150,000 shares, more than half their March 31st position, dropping them to third on the list, while the #4 top holder, Stark Investments (they of the placement in February 2005), has sold out their position entirely. Rather pathetically, only ten institutions now report holding more than 1,000 shares of REFR, and of those, only three have fewer than 2,500 positions (in other words, the other seven very likely hold REFR as part of an indexing).

With apparently less than six months of operating capital left, it's really starting to get down to crunch time in REFR's efforts to gain new funding. Will Falkner's report help them out? We can only wait and see...

Go in peace. SPD no more.

Remember the Church of Pinnacle Hills, the showcase project that was supposed to kick off frenetic demand for SPD in the architectural market?

Well, apparently the fine folk of northwestern Arkansas have given SPD a "get thee behind me" and elected to use electrochromic glass from SAGE Electrochromics instead, as per a recent article on the construction project.

This is not a huge surprise given the revelation that SPD film products had only started in June and even then only in trial amounts. Nevertheless, it must grate long-suffering shareholders to see the feather in the cap go to a rival that not long ago they had dismissed as hopelessly behind them in terms of reaching commercialization.

Meanwhile, back on the message boards, promotional activity has seemingly dwindled to just a very small number of aliases. Furthermore, the ratings from the new "star" system for posts skew dramatically in favor of bearish posts, strongly indicating that the bears hanging out on the board now heavily outnumber the bulls. (Either that, or most of the bulls haven't yet figured out how to enter ratings.) And the one promotional poster that is remaining active is frankly going just a little off the deep end, forecasting, for example, a buyout in excess of one billion dollars for REFR (more than 15 times the current market cap).

Is this a sign that the whole operation is quietly winding down? Stay tuned.

Production confirmed... yawn...

Frankly I didn't think the presentation at this year's annual meeting contained anything even worth a post to this blog, but the sheer determination of a handful of people to make a big deal out of it has been impressive enough for me to make a note of it.

So. Annual meeting 2006. June 8, 2006. Attending the meeting are Shigeo Sase, a general manager at Hitachi Chemical and Anthony Pirro of DIC Trading, the sales/marketing arm of Dainippon Ink and Chemical. (This Mr. Pirro is not of any known relation to the Pirro brothers of NYC-area tax evasion infamy.)

Mr. Pirro revealed an extremely minimal SPD production installation at Dainippon, with "plans to increase production". Mr. Sase's presentation was somewhat more specific, advertising "plans" for production capacity increases in October of this year, and much larger increase in October of next year.

Of course, plans are nothing if not subject to change. No doubt SPD Inc. had big plans in its day.

But what should have struck observant viewers was what was not said, and who was not there. Where, one might ask, were the representatives of the companies actually licensed to sell products based on SPD to the general public and/or companies outside REFR's immediate sphere of influence? Where were the plans for products once all this film is available? Who's placing the orders for this film?

A month and a half has now passed and still nothing has surfaced indicating that anyone has anything they particularly want SPD film for, other than make sample kits that show off how neat SPD is. Which you would not think would bode well for REFR, as its cash slows bleeds away, mostly into the pockets of the management that has been living off it for decades.

So we continue to wait for something, anything, to happen.

Having more un than a blogger should be allowed to have

Just wanted note the coining of a new term to describe companies that, despite having no track record of earnings whatsoever, paradoxically get promoted on the basis of their "fundamentals".

The term is "undamentals", and credit goes to the person postings as xavierducats on the Yahoo! REFR message board. By xavier's own admission, the term was born of a typo, but is such an accurate description I heartily advocate its adoption for broader use.

Just goes to show that you never know where the next source of entertainment from this stock's story will come from.

Beyond the mountains, more BS

One enterprising reader with more tolerance for empty rhetoric than this blogger recently pointed out a particularly strained analogy in the latest REFR annual report. Quoting the correspondent's account of the report (the actual report is, almost predictably, not yet available on the REFR website):

"There is a Hatian(sic) proverb: "Beyound the mountains are more mountains." This proverb applies to most companies involved in bringing a new technology to market. In R&D, after one issue is resolved, others sometimes arise. It is appropriate to note that Haiti is an island nation, so that eventually, with perseverance and hard work, the mountains will end, the goal is reached, and smooth sailing across the ocean of opportunity can begin."

Notice how Harary actually turns the proverb completely on its head. The proverb speaks to how life always has another challenge to throw at you. Harary's vision is one of a switch flipping someday (soooooon!!) and all of REFR's challenges suddenly coming to an end, replaced by effortless perpetual cash flow.

Sorry, but that's the talk of a shyster.

Theoretical down-the-road challenges for REFR are legion. Conventional electrochromics by such companies as Gentex have already beaten SPD heads-up in the automotive and aeronautical market. Liquid crystal-based technology is always lurking. And there are plenty of wildcards out there like the material the Huskies are developing.

Then there's REFR's patent protection, which grows more questionable by the day. Shareholders have often been heard gloating at other companies receiving patents based on Harary's old patents (or in some cases, merely mentioning SPD in passing as a theoretically possible component of their invention), calling it proof of how interested in SPD companies are. Not occurring to them, apparently, is how those patents give the companies receiving them a nominal claim on the technology itself. And then there's the matter of whether REFR can even afford to fight a patent dispute. The upshot of all of this being that REFR may in fact have lost control of its own technology.

Of course, all that would remain to be seen in a patent court, and that won't happen until there's actually something to fight over.

As an amusing footnote, another correspondent produced a quote from Robert Saxe, citing the exact same Haitian proverb with the exact same twisting into the opposite meaning, dated 1993. Thirteen years later, and REFR's still sitting on the same mountain.

Give a hoot, don't dilute!

REFR bowed to the inevitable Friday, filing an S-3 with the SEC to register another two million shares of common stock for sale. In combination with the one million shares unsold from the previous filing, that represents more than 20% potential dilution to its investors, should REFR successfully recapitalize themselves in the next eight months. Of course, if they don't, that will be even worse for its investors.

Of course, whether there will be any takers this time around is another issue. In REFR's favor, there's a better economy about and investment dollars are flowing a bit more freely. Against them, their track record of failure is a little bit longer and a little bit more public. Fortunately for them, the recent high volumes suggest that they have successfully moved Stark Investments out of the picture and thus set up a clean slate for the next suc... er, institutional investor.

As P. T. Barnum would put it, an institutional investor is born every minute, so hope remains that Bob and Joe will find someone out in the big, wide world sufficiently naive to the REFR story that they will be reeled in. (Even though Stark seems to have made out all right in the end, it's unlikely we will see them coming back for seconds, especially after the 50% haircut they were staring down at one point.)

Time will tell.

A paucity of capacity

In an uncharacteristically helpful gesture on their part, the mangement of REFR issued an 8-K filing presenting the highlights of this afternoon's conference call. Specifically, they pointed out information that could be considered "new" for disclosure purposes. All of it, interestingly, concerned the progress of film licensee Hitachi Chemical, which had not been officially heard from in some time, despite being touted as being in the lead in terms of production progress.

Hitachi was reported to have a production line capable of producing film about 19 inches in width (narrower than the film Dainippon was reported to have produced), with a second line due to be activated later this year. The second line was said to be planning widths "in excess of one meter", with an expected capacity "measured in the tens of thousands of square feet per month".

Wow, that's... not very much. Let's run a little math, shall we?

We'll start by making some very generous assumptions:

• End-product licensees will be able to command $30 a square foot for the film, and sell out the full capacity of the new line.
• The capacity of the new line is 50,000 square feet per month (it could easily be half that and the announcement would not be misleading)
• REFR will collect royalties on 10% of the cost of the film (on most products the royalty cut is 5% of the sale price, we'll be generous and assume SPD to only be half the cost of the product).

Given that extremely favorable set of assumptions, the annual revenue to REFR would come to $1.8 million a year, or less than half the company's expenses. Throw in the original line, whose capacity is presumably not "in the tens of thousands of square feet per month", and you get to maybe $2.2 million a year.

Naturally, the mathematically-challeged SPDiots are already counting their cash dividends.

Bottom line, even making an almost comically optimistic set of assumptions, there is still no apparent path to break even cash flow in the foreseeable future for REFR. And when you add a dose of reality to the mix, in the form of management's chronic tendency to grossly underdeliver, and it quickly begins to resemble business as usual in Woodbury.

Stop and go trading

Just wanted to remark on the heavy trading volume in REFR, the largest in ten years, over one million shares. Clearly something is up, but what exactly that is remains a mystery. At least for three more days, as the "big news" triggering today's upsurge was the announcement of the company's annual conference call, scheduled for this Thursday afternoon (a full three weeks after the filing it is supposed to discuss).

Even more odd is the intraday trading pattern. Effectively, there was basically no volume until just a little before 10:00am ET, a half-hour into the session. Then the price spiked in a matter of moments, only to quickly settle up about 10% up from the previous close. Then heavy trading kicked in for about 90 minutes, after which, just as suddenly, the trading all but came to a halt. No, it was not an official halt; rather, it was just the traders in the stock spontaneously walking away from it. About 45 minutes later it resumed, only to take another 15 minute break a half hour later. After that came relatively steady trading through to an active close.

To the casual observer, who in a couple of weeks will only have access to the daily volume totals, this will no doubt come off as an establishment of widespread bullish interest in REFR. But between you and me, reader, this "interest" is about as natural as Velveeta.

Regardless of what I think, one thing is clear, and that is that something of interest to REFR, one way or another, is going to come out on Thursday. I'm staying on record that it's some kind of upper management change, most likely the very-due retirement of founder Bob Saxe, but I admit that's more gut instinct than anything else. At any rate, whatever it is, we shall soon see.

Uh oh, Asensio!

As if the past week were not eventful enough for a company notable primarily for its dormancy over the past couple of years, an old acquaintance of REFR's, the research firm Asensio and Company, has broken a nearly four-year silence on the company's continued failure to produce results of any kind. The firm, which, depending on who you talk to, may or may not maintain a connection with its namesake founder, controversial short-seller (a phrase about as redundant these days as "tall basketball player") Manuel Asensio, issued two brief reports Thursday summarizing the total failure the company has been over the years, referencing, as noted here first, the questionable lack of a "going concern" clause in the recent 10-K filing, and hypothesizing that the company's ability to raise funds to pay its management's comfortable salaries may be nearing an end.

Reaction to the reports was swift and predictable. It was noted that the report stated that REFR has been trying to sell SPD glass for years, when in fact it has not been trying to do any such thing. So apparently the primary objection to the report is that it gives REFR too much credit.

Other various charges were hurled at Mr. Asensio himself, none worth the dignifying that spelling them out here would give them. Suffice it to say that even asensioexposed.com, your one-stop shop for ad hominem attacks on various short-sellers including Asensio, is thus far not touching them.

Seems like everything old is new again, in REFR land.

Stock rally -- some assembly required

Normally, when a small, unregarded company suddenly releases "BIG BIG" news in the morning, the result is a giant upsurge in volume and large run-up in price (at least in the near term).

Leave it to REFR to put even that basic process into slow motion.

On Monday, REFR announced that licensee Dainippon had updated their license to include production of film (previously, they were only licensed to produce badly-outdated SPD emulsions). This astounding developement led to a large upsurge in volume... on Tuesday, and large spike in the price of REFR... on Wednesday.

However that managed to happen, the whole effect comes off as hideously unnatural. Furthermore, with the tight wraps the company keeps on its stock, it's all but a lock that the company has a good idea who was involved in all that trading on Tuesday. Will the rest of us ever be let in on the secret? Your guess is as good as mine.

Regardless, yet another rally has been blunted right at the $5.00 mark that has dominated this stock since last February's offering. So some things, apparently, have not yet changed.

Meanwhile... an old acquaintance has returned to the scene after a lengthy absence. More on that Monday.

BAMASS Surprised at Latest REFR PR

The Bashers' and Manipulators' Association (BAMASS) announced that it was surprised by Research Frontiers, when the latter put out its first news release in five months this morning, announcing that Japan's Dainippon Ink and Chemical had expanded its license to produce SPD emulsions, to include production of SPD film.

Bill Asher, spokesman for BAMASS, announced, "This PR was rather startling. We had previously thought that Dainippon was already fully licensed to produce film. We now have our researchers scanning the licensee lists for other instances of licensees with outdated licenses whose updating could presage further press releases." There are currently no other licensees listed as being licensed for emulsion but not film.

Asher went on to add, "I have full confidence that Dainippon will make just as much use of their new license as they did with their emulsion license."

Eight weeks a month

REFR bulls have rallied behind a CNET News.com article by editor at-large Michael Kanellos. The article heavily quotes John Petraglia, CEO of SPD Control Systems, noted previously as yet another in a line of cookie-cutter REFR licensees which come out of nowhere, make a little noise to get a few people excited, then vanish to leave nothing but their name on REFR's burgeoning list of licensees. In a shocking development, Petraglia spoke optimistically of the technology his company is licensed to sell.

Besides the amusingly obscure mention of Leminur, which apparently does exist after all, only now under a different name, and no particular favoritism to SPD or REFR, the highlight of the article appears to be the very beginning of the article, wherein Kanellos writes: "Smart Glass, which will be shown off and discussed more fully in about eight weeks...".

Bulls in REFR have gone nuts trying to parse exactly what that refers to. So far the consensus on the message boards appears to be that the article foreshadows a major development of some kind within the next month. (Hey, eight weeks, one month, who's counting?) Critics responded by yawning and hitting the snooze button, knowing full well that asking any of the bulls for any sort of clarification on what they mean is a waste of time.

Meanwhile, with only nine months or so before the cash runs out, the heat is decidedly on for REFR to find some source of cash infusion to keep the lights on. Given the usual regulatory hurdles that need to be cleared, things need to start happening pretty soon if they're going to make it. So next month way well be interesting to watch. Unless, of course, it isn't.

Out with the old?

Research Frontiers, ever full of surprises (or full of something, anyway), submitted its 10-K for fiscal year 2005 yesterday, a full two days ahead of the deadline. For the year, they amassed $138,742 in "fee income", the lowest level since 1999. (Ironic that the stock should have done so well that year!)

One point of interest that has come up is the assertion that REFR will have sufficient funds to make it into Q1 2007 without additional funding (a necessary assertion to avoid the dreaded "going concern" clause in their filing).

But elsewhere in the filing, the numbers don't quite add up to support that claim. Cash as of the end of 2005 was pegged at $3,644,685, while "net cash used in operating activites" for 2005 was $3,920,835. The same figure in 2004 was slightly less than $3.64 million, but that included a non-repeating cash gain from the remnants of SPD Inc.

Any way you cut it, the company, as it is, seems to come up a little bit short of being able to make it to years' end solvent. Presumably, then, REFR has some kind of plan to cut costs to allow themslves to stretch their cash out until December.

Given that the details of how REFR spends its cash are a bit murky to say the least, it's hard to speculate just where the cuts might come, but one sizeable item suggests itself.

Chairman, founder and director Robert Saxe has devoted 40 years to... well, whatever it is REFR does, and by all standards figures to be ready to move on to an enjoyable retirement. (Paid for by... well, let's not go there today.) If Saxe were to announce his retirement at the annual meeting this year, that would, based on his 2004 salary, trim roughly $250,000 from REFR's expenses for the year. In and of itself that's still not quite enough, but that gets the target into range, wherein a simple matter of deferring a couple of payables by a month or two, or maybe a handful of exercises of cheap stock options, gets them across the December 31st finish line intact.

So could that be it? Could this be Saxe's last ride? Will this officially become Joe Harary's company before the year is out? And if so, will Harary display the same kind of, er, patience as Saxe has over the years? Stay tuned.

A message board retrospective

Bill Wexler, longtime follower of what he bluntly refers to as "the REFR stock fraud", is back with a new retrospective on the follies posted to the Yahoo! REFR message board.

By way of editorial comment, I should note that there really is not much remarkable about overly optimistic posts from the year 2000, particularly during the spring and summer, when the reality of the bear market hadn't really set in yet.

What is remarkable, though, is that even to this day, you see the same kind of talk, from mostly the same people (even as the aliases have changed over time), backed up by the same utter lack of results from the company. The only difference, really, is that the stock has not gotten crushed as badly in more recent years. Time will tell if the line can continue to hold long enough to the company to place the next round of shares at a useful price.

Anyway, with that as prologue, please join me at the summit as we ski down REFR Hubris Mountain. Take care though, it does hit double-diamond in spots...

"Buy REFR, it's the best buy on the market and has more potential than any other stock I know of..."
-- February 17, 2000. REFR closing price: $38 5/8 (all-time high close)

"I just wish REFR would pull back one more time (maybe mid 20's?) so I can pick up another few thousand shares. Then it's off to the outer-banks for unlimited Coronas and hot crab balls..."
-- February 22, 2000. Closing price: $37

"I'm going to buy waterfront in the islands with all the money I'm gonna make on REFR..."
-- March 28, 2000. Closing price: $34 1/2

"There are not a whole hell of a lot of customer sell orders out there, people are holding..."
-- March 30, 2000. Closing price: $31 1/2

"I think we bagged the elephant..."
-- March 31, 2000. Closing price: $29 1/2

"This stock is headed to the moon soon..."
-- April 7, 2000. Closing price: $27 3/4

"There are no shares for sale - you are a dead duck..."
-- July 28, 2000. Closing price: $25 1/16

"There are no shares for sale - you are a dead duck..."
-- August 2, 2000. Closing price: $23 1/16

"Recent scale up by emulsion suppliers, advanced commercialization by licensees and hiring of new employees to handle new licensee applications all points to this occurring. That is why longs are not selling..."
-- August 15, 2000. Closing price: $22

"I bought 1000 additional shares this morning...I have been accumulating since 1998...The company has never looked better or more grossly undervalued..."
-- August 21, 2001. Closing price: $20.80

"NO ONE is selling! Too many GOOD things happening with licensees..."
-- January 7, 2002. Closing price: $19.00

"Why the Shorts will lose a lot of money..."
-- February 22, 2002. Closing price: $17.30

"SHORTS PANIC!!!"
-- April 8, 2002. Closing price: $16.80

"Shorts Defeated Again..."
-- May 15, 2002. Closing price: $15.29

"The LONGS aren't selling!!!"
-- June 1, 2002. Closing price: $13.81

"There's no fundamental reason to sell. SPD products are still coming out..."
-- July 9, 2002. Closing price: $12.50

"But if I were a trader where do I see the biggest gain? LONG!"
-- August 22, 2002. Closing price: $11.35

"Asensio and his CONSPIRATORS are going to be here until LONGS decide to sell.
...and THAT doesn't look like ANYTIME BELOW $50 a share!!!"
-- August 23, 2002. Closing price: $10.35

"LONGS ARE FEEEEEEEELING THEIR POWER!!!"
-- September 9, 2002. Closing price: $9.60

"YOU are TRAPPED IN REFR, because YOU CAN'T get LONGS to sell!!!"
-- January 10, 2003. Closing price: $8.60

"Where are the promised windows? What kind of stupid question is that?"
-- January 31, 2003. Closing price: $7.34

"REFR SHORTS FAIL TO GET LONGS TO SELL!!"
-- February 28, 2003. Closing price: $6.70

"Longs are BUYING, NOT SELLING!!!"
-- March 19, 2003. Closing price: $5.66

And now a lengthy coast to the lodge and the present day, where we see...

The price going down represents to us just one more (maybe the last) opportunity to own one of the great technologies of all time at a bargain price.
-- January 26, 2006. Closing price: $4.99

Do tell.

Kooks and Kabura

Ostensibly, it has been a dormant start to 2006 for our favorite patent licensing company. No new licensees, no public announcements, and still no word on when the big-name licensees would be ready to produce second-generation SPD film in quantity.

But you would not know this from reading the Yahoo! REFR message board.

The titter all this month on that board has been over a description of the 2006 Mazda Kabura concept car which included the statement, "Overhead portions of the glass have adjustable tinting so that the driver can twist a knob on bright days to change the roof’s opacity, as desired, from clear to completely opaque."

Well our favorite investors put two and two together and -- news flash! -- decided that the adjustable tinting material in question must be SPD. Never mind small details such as the windows being reported as going "completely opaque", a characteristic never ascribed to SPD.

Eventually, however, it was confirmed that the material in question was in fact SPD. And when I say "confirmed", I mean that an anonymous alias posted a message asserting, without evidence, that it was confirmed. Meanwhile, someone posted an article from the British Channel 4 website which asserted that the Kabura's roof was in fact "electrochromatic". This all led to an amusing discussion over the distinction between "electrochromic" and "electrochromatic", whether those terms were inclusive or exclusive of SPD, and which of them was the proper expansion of the shorthand "EC". Needless to say, nothing was resolved on any of those scores.

What we do know is this: neither Mazda nor REFR nor any source outside of the message boards has ever once mentioned any relationship between SPD and the Kabura. Mind you, all of those can and have been rationalized away: Mazda is being secretive (about an auto show display?!), REFR may be contractually barred from publicizing (people are on to them!), and the press is lazy (somehow it became their job to do REFR's publicity for them).

But by this time it's a moot point. By the time you read this, the Detroit International Auto Show will have closed. Any press release at this point asserting that the adjustable tint material was in fact SPD will be completely after the fact and therefore ineffective for publicity purposes.

Worse still, such a release would call to mind the Jeep Rescue debacle from the 2004 Detroit auto show. It would mean that twice in a span of two years, an auto company was so underwhelmed by SPD in practice that they deliberately avoided reference to it even
though it was in plain sight. The last time that happened, the major supplier of film shut down a few months later.

Frankly, were I a REFR shareholder, I'd rather forget the whole thing.

New Year's scorecard review

2005 proved to be an active year for REFR after (by REFR's standards), as progress was arguably made towards no less than two of the twelve items on the REFR announcement scorecard. "Plans" were announced by Isoclima to introduce film into the market, in conjunction with their demo display at an Italian glass show in early October. Then, soon thereafter, details came to light regarding a church construction project in Arkansas, which, as things stand, is currently slated to incorporate SPD window shading. Whether that actually comes off as planned remains to be seen, and then there's the question of what qualifies as a "major" architectural project. Since there has been no announcement as such, we can't really give them a "yes" on that one yet anyway, but it is something that may be showing up in the coming weeks.

On the downside, the jumbo jet announcement looks dead, and the marine and automotive markets look very distant. And of course, as things stand, the money is scheduled to run out just about one year from right now, so more share dilution is on the way, assuming they can find someone to front for them for the next round. But that's the fun of this: even with a company as predictably unproductive as this one, there's still so much that manages to remain shrouded in mystery. Let's watch and see what 2006 brings to Woodbury. shall we?