When it comes to investing in high-tech stocks, you need to catch companies at the right phase of their growth spurt. Major profits were made in companies like Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) while they were still being introduced to fresh new waves of investors. By the time they were widely-known, they became "dead-money" stocks, moving sideways for years to come.
Even if you can spot these high-growth stocks in the early phases of their life cycle, it can still be hard to assess whether signs of robust growth are just a short-term event or the beginning of a sustained longer phase of growth.
I've been tracking a fast-growing data storage company that has the makings of a solid profitable multi-year investment. In my view, it's the early innings.
I'm talking about Fusion-io (NYSE: FIO), which didn't even land its first customer until 2008. The company initially
had a hard time convincing customers of its unusual approach to data storage. While many rivals were pushing data storage solutions based on hard drives, this company insisted that flash memory was the way to go. This type of memory is both more reliable and faster, but it's also more expensive than traditional hard drive-based approaches.
David Sterman
David Sterman has worked as an investment analyst for nearly two decades. He is currently an analyst for
StreetAuthority.com