Palladium - The Next Big Thing

Motley Fool
The Next Big Thing
Thursday December 9, 11:21 am ET
By Rich Smith

Flat-panel televisions based on plasma and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology have been available for mass consumption for a couple of years already -- an eternity in tech time. Which means -- what else? -- it's time for the next big advance in technology to come along and make these two obsolete.

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That's right. Even as companies such as Philips (NYSE: PHG) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) are investing tens of billions of dollars in ramping up manufacturing capacity to satisfy mounting demand for their current flat-panel offerings, it's already looking like LCD and plasma could go the way of the vacuum tube. As we discussed back in September, Toshiba (OTC BB: TOSBF) and Canon (NYSE: CAJ) have been working on commercializing a brand-new technology for flat-panels: "Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Displays," or "SEDs." As recently as two months ago, the companies were talking about where these latest high-tech gizmos might be five years, six years out. This week, that changed, as they promised to have their first SED sets ready for market by August next year and to ramp up to full production at their new "SED, Inc." joint venture by 2006. My, how time flies.

An SED set will supposedly combine the best of both television-viewing worlds: Like LCD or plasma, it will be just a few inches thick and light enough that you can hang even the largest SED screen on your living-room wall (a little to the left, now down an inch -- perfect! Right next to the painting of Aunt Esmeralda). An SED set should also consume less power than an electricity-hungry plasma yet produce images as sharp and bright as a standard cathode ray tube set.

So how best to play the possibility that Toshiba and Canon are right in their predictions and that SED is the wave of the future? There's the obvious choice, of course: Buy shares of Toshiba or Canon. But there's also another way. According to trade publication Platinum Today, a thin coating of palladium oxide on an SED's screen is integral to this technology. So Fools might want to consider investing in producers of that rare element, palladium.

Going that route, it's a pretty easy choice whom to buy. All by its lonesome, Russia's Norilsk Nickel (NQB: NILSY) produces 70% of the world's palladium. The company also owns a stake in a U.S.-based palladium producer, Montana's Stillwater Mining (NYSE: SWC). And just north of that is Canada's North American Palladium (AMEX: PAL). Those last two are really just bit players when it comes to palladium mining, but if it makes you feel safer investing closer to home, there they are.  

Russians hunt for $3bn 'missing' palladium - paper

The fate of Russian palladium valued at $3-billion is unknown and the Audit Chamber has requested an investigation to find out what happened to it, a newspaper said on Friday.

mehr:

http://www.miningweekly.co.za/min/news/today/?show=68123