Winning in the stock market is conceptually easy: buy low, sell high. But the secret is all in the timing. When do you buy? The answer is straightforward: when the stock is when you think it hits bottom. During the stock market crash of 2008 many stocks were in extremely distressed states, and were begging to be bought in hopes of future gains when the economy recovers. This strategy was undertaken by many people to great effect.
But what if you had invested in the 3D printing industry? There’s actually not a lot of options, with the two main choices being 3D Systems and Stratasys. These are the only two 3D printing companies that are currently publicly traded. Let’s take a look at an extreme example: 3D Systems.
It appears that on March 6, 2009, 3D Systems stock bottomed out at a mere USD$4.63. Wind the clock ahead to March 3, 2011 and we find their stock topped out at USD$53.29! Um, if our calculator is working correctly, this means the stock rose by 11.5 times over the past two years! Some of this was due to a recent burst of activity, but it’s very real nonetheless.
To put this in perspective, had you invested USD$10,000 in 2009, you’d be sitting on a sweet USD$115,097! Imagine all the ABS filament you could buy with that!
More seriously, the massive rise in stock value of not only 3D Systems but also Stratasys indicates we have attracted a huge interest in the technology from all corners. And that can only be good.
