lt cap,

Agreed - the future is VR in many areas. And NOK's getting out of a limited demand product makes sense - esp. if they recoup some costs by simply licensing the existing tech and letting others do the heavy lifting. 

I continue to be a dumbfounded dope on NVDA - I've watched them climb from $20/sh. to $190, pushing close to 52 week (and probably all-time) highs. They have so many irons in the fire, from consumer/professional videocards to driverless vehicles to competing with INTC and AMD for cloud products that I just don't see caps for their expansion possibilities. And they're well managed. I am still mulling a buy, even at these lofty valuations. The same with Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), which you first pointed out as a bleeding edge tech company. They recently split 3-to-1, but measuring pre-split their rise has been swift and meteoric. Likely the valuations are quite high for both companies, but growth is not a pipe dream. Likewise, still mulling a buy in ISRG.

The one company you brought to my attention where I did make a buy is Palo Alto Networks (PANW) What a ride that has been - as high as $200/sh. as low as $11X hundred-teens, now about $150/sh. I probably just ought to book a small profit and be done - all the software security firms valuations are very high, even given the growth prospects. What stays my hand are those growth prospects - Equifax, Yahoo, etc. etc. breach stories are just going to continue to multiply. As you know, the odds so greatly favor the hackers - in 1,000 attempts, they only have to succeed once. For the security 'gatekeepers' in 1,000 attempts they have to succeed every time. As companies are scared witless by the prospect of being the next Equifax, I think they're open to being marketed without looking too closely at the claims the software co. makes. I'm not real fond of PANW playing fast and loose with their earnings information. They massaged the numbers some time ago to make it look like they were profitable for 8 consecutive quarters when in fact they were losing money. Not a great way to court analysts. But some analysts have upped their recommendations, regardless, and that has been a driver of share price.

I think NVDA and ISRG may be better candidates to invest in. Why I sit with a PANW position sometimes mystifies me :-)

I make the assumption on NOK that the continual mild downdraft (over time, that is) from the $6.50's to below $6 has to do with timetables for 5g being pushed back, midling to poor immediate prospects, and general sector weakness, reflected also in INFN and CIEN, not to mention ERIC. I assume there are no known likelihood of really nasty surprises (Suri flees to become head of ERIC? :-) that is driving this stock continually backwards at the moment.

On the INTC/AMD front, some of my info was apparently mistaken. Altho AMD receives consideration for the 1700 and 1800 lines of Ryzen chips for gaming, they were pretty much already beaten by INTC's Kaby lake 7000's higher end iterations - but at a price premium. Coffee Lake, which widens that gap, and cannabalizes their own Kaby Lake models, is sold out everywhere, with no indications of when they'll again be available. The price increase over Kaby Lake is about $20/chip, for boosts of 25-50% performance. And on the lower-end/mainstream computer chips, Ryzens often get the nod as best-in-class-for-the-price over INTC's offerings. And I do smell a price war in the air. Great to be a consumer these days, the war would not serve either company well.  Besides, INTC's first job will be to re-supply the channel which is currently empty.