Hoku Scientific, the first Hawaiian company to be listed on the Nasdaq, receives high praise indeed from Zack's Buy List, citing " . . . exceeded earnings estimates in four consecutive quarters and has reported a profit in six straight quarters. One analyst raised his numbers for this year. Over the past month, this year's estimates have increased 25%".

And yet, this company is 64% down on 1 year ago !

I've got my doubts about Hoku being a fuel cell developer and a solar business. Perhaps like many fuel cell companies, Hoku has just found it very tough to bring a product to market.

ECD has just made some new appointments;
Since the death of co-founder Iris Ovshinsky, ECD may now be going through some big changes. Not least in new staff appointments . . .

Sanjeev Kumar as vice president and chief financial officer; Jay B. Knoll as vice president and general counsel; Paul Reynar , vice president-manufacturing; Jack Schutzbach , director of human resources and business administration; and Gary Morin as chief information officer.

I'm not saying it was related, but yesterday was a bad day on the market for ECD - the stock closed down 8.55% (delayed quote prices from advfn now available on our website). Last July, UBS reduced its buy rating for the stock from 52 to 48.

It is now at 31.86.