Remember how everyone said the bursting of the Great 2000 Tech Bubble would bring sanity to the stock market?

Remember how the lessons of the crash in technology were supposed to teach us how a price/earnings (PE) ratio of 1,700 was a tad high (yes, Yahoo! was bid up to 1,700 times earnings per share in 2000 by pinheads who figured the 1,700 was actually cheerleading Internet analyst Henry Blodget’s 12-month target for the stock)?

Remember how dividend-paying stocks were going to become all the rage in the future?

Well, forget all that rubbish. Blood-red balance sheets and Nortel are cool again for many speculators. The jokers are back at the craps table. Insanity rules. In what feels like a tech bubble, punters are salivating again over shares of the Great Canadian Tech Wreck, Nortel Networks (NT-TSX) and, naturally, Yahoo! (YHOO-Nasdaq).

But don’t laugh too loudly. It so happens that there is enough insanity out there so that confusing the tech market with Las Vegas has turned into a profitable game for many.

Those who had the guts to buy Nortel at 67 cents last October are riding a 680-per-cent gain.

But wasn’t Nortel supposed to be Canada’s poster child for stock market buffoonery?

Well, here we are, only three and a half years removed from the peak of the bubble and Nortel is trading at a PE ratio of about 65 times its expected earnings for the 12 months ahead.

Yahoo has more than tripled off its 52-week low of $9 US to trade at a current PE of 110.

What’s even more astounding about this tech rally of the past 11 months that has spiked the Nasdaq 60 per cent is that companies with no earnings are being bid up to the moon again.

Although it’s starting to feel like 2000 all over again, there is one huge difference this time around.

The same retail traders who in 2000 bought into the outrageous target prices concocted by the pied pipers of Wall Street are now ignoring the cautionary signs from the Street.

Many analysts, while acknowledging improved cash-flow numbers and a more positive outlook, have been tugging on the reins with hold and sell recommendations that were virtually non-existent during the height of tech mania.

Check out Nortel, once the sweetheart of an analyst community that has now been embarrassed into issuing negative calls.

Nortel has six buy recommendations, 17 holds and five sells. And the favourite of Wall Street cheerleaders, Yahoo!, has six buys, six holds and one sell. Consensus recommendations for Nortel and Yahoo! are hold.

But let’s be honest here. In their world, buy often means hold. Hold usually means sell. Sell always means screaming sell.

From this corner, it sounds like the analysts are screaming sell.

If the techs come crashing down this fall as many experts believe, retail traders will have a terrible dilemma.

This time, who would they sue?

* WIRELESS WINNERS: Calgary’s CSI Wireless (CSY-TSX) and Wi-LAN (WIN-TSX) continue to gain ground in the wireless market. CSI recorded its second straight profitable quarter with earnings of $505,000 or two cents a share and more than doubled revenue to $22 million from the year-ago period.

Yet the market had a strangely lukewarm response to the numbers. CSI stock is up about 70 per cent from its 52-week low.

Wi-LAN, which traded at $90 when it spent money like a drunken sailor, posted earnings of $37,000 or zero cents per share in its latest quarter while ramping up revenue by 25 per cent, compared to a loss of $6.2 million in the year-ago period.

* SILVER LINING: Gold’s poor cousin, silver, is finally getting some respect from precious metals gurus, some of whom believe the metal could explode amid reports of a pending supply crisis.

Richard Russell of the Dow Theory Letters recently turned bullish on silver and Canada’s most respected precious metals guru, John Embry of Sprott Investment Management, has gone on record calling on silver, which recently broke the $5 US barrier, to reach $10 US per ounce.

Incidentally, the easy money in the market’s few silver plays has already been made. Sterling Mining (SRLM-Nasdaq OTCBB) has gained 2,730 per cent in the past year to $3.55 US and Canada’s major silver play, PanAmerican Silver (PAA-TSX), has doubled this year to $14.55.

* SAGE WORDS: “And w-w-where are the c-c-customers’ yachts?”

– U.S. attorney William Travers upon seeing wealthy stockbrokers’ yachts.



HOT ALBERTA STOCK : RANCHGATE ENERGY
ROG-TSX $1.24
Up 29 cents (+30.6%) on 1,850,600 shares
(for week ending Aug. 29)
Shareholders backed up their pickup trucks after the Ranch knocked their boots off with quarterly results (ending June 30), boasting a whopping 520-per-cent increase in revenue from a year ago. Ranchgate’s revenue was $3.8 million, up from $745,000, and the
company earned $833,000 compared to a loss of $65,000 in year-ago numbers.



COLD ALBERTA STOCK : DESTINY RESOURCE SERVICES
DSC-TSX 71/2 cents
Down 51/2 cents (-42.3%) on 1,649,700 shares (for week ending Aug. 29)
Yup, shareholders can take a hint. Of course, when three directors resign, the energy services company shows escalating losses and resorts to the old line about strategic alternatives, you don’t really need too many more clues that something is awry. If you bought in at $2.50 five years ago, you’ve got some mighty fine wallpaper.