If you’re still courting one-time stock market tech flames Wi-Lan, Cell-Loc, Axia NetMedia, Zi Corp. and Wireless Matrix, you may require a stiff shot of Grandpa’s medicine before perusing the latest stomach-wrenching share prices.

Watching the one-time darlings of the Alberta tech scene in a free fall is akin to watching a skydiver – without a parachute. Or watching a demolition derby. Or the unceremonious fall from grace of Martha Stewart. I confess. For some unexplained reason, I still keep these mangy mutts on my watch list.

It ain’t pretty, folks.

And it just got a heck of a lot worse for these companies that are at the mercy of a grisly bear market for companies connected to wireless, mobile phone and Internet markets.

With profit-warning season in full swing and major tech players such as Celestica, Electronic Data Systems and Alcatel providing stormy forecasts, most of the baby techs have been dragged down with the big companies.

And there’s no reason to believe the worst is over. Imagine the carnage of cash-starved small-cap tech stocks if the markets are hit by a true panic selloff this fall.

Wi-Lan (WIN-TSE), Cell-Loc (CLQ-TSX) and Axia (AXX-TSX) have already been reduced to true penny-stock status after the latest blood letting in the week ending Sept. 20.

Remember Wi-Lan?

It was the “Cabbie Special” in 1999 and 2000 in Calgary as it soared to the $90 range at a time when tech stocks defied the laws of gravity.

In February, 2001, CEO Hatim Zaghloul told the Edge that Wi-Lan was a potential “multi-billion-dollar (revenue) company or at least a billion-dollar company” by 2005. The broadband wireless company also forecast that it expected positive earnings before the end of 2002.

It continues to bleed red – operating losses were $3.7 million for the latest quarter, through July 31 – and reported a cash
balance of $6.4 million on July 31.

It was booted out of a revised TSX composite index and closed the past week at 99 cents, down another 15 per cent.

Research Capital maintained a hold recommendation on Wi-Lan – when an analyst says hold, it often is a polite way of telling investors to jump ship. Analyst Rob Millham noted that Wi-Lan, in its quarterly report, “maintained a relatively upbeat outlook (although we are not quite sure how realistic it is).”

If Millham’s not sure, how can you be?

Despite aggressive cost cutting, the other beaten local techs are dogged by similar issues – no earnings, dwindling cash and the grisly tech bear market.

Cell-Loc, which once traded in the $80 range, didn’t even release any bad news and still took a 26-per-cent pounding in the past week, dipping to 75 cents.

Axia, a key player in the Alberta SuperNet wireless Internet project, suddenly plunged to 80 cents from $1.10 as jittery investors lit up a chatboard over the fact the company, run by former Husky Energy CEO Art Price, has yet to report its fiscal fourth quarter that ended almost three months ago.

“This pig,” jeered one chatboard writer, “is going to slaughter.”

Zi Corp. (ZIC-TSX), once a high flyer at $58, has sunk to $3.80 and Wireless Matrix (WRX-TSX), a $19 stock not so long ago, has plummeted to $1.51.

Investors burned by these techs are waiting for the tech market to turn around. But even that may not be enough for companies that continue to lose money.

When the Wi-Lans and Cell-Locs were still in vogue in 2000, I recall Cody Slater, CEO of Calgary-based BW Technologies (BWT-TSX), shaking his head in dismay over the insane market caps of IT and wireless
companies.

Slater’s operation was then out of fashion, trading a few shares a day in the $6.50 range. The boss didn’t even have a cellphone let alone a ringing shoe as he pitched the wonders of BW’s boring old gas detectors.

Since then, BW has almost tripled to $18.50. While boring stocks like BW flourish, techs that were all the rage two to three years ago are not well.

Pass the smelling salts.

* STREET RANT: Ross Healy believes oil and gas stocks don’t get enough respect, and the candid
president of Strategic Analysis wags an accusing finger at commentators who obsess over the commodity price
fluctuations.

“If I’d wasted my energy being as concerned as most commentators about energy stocks in the past year, I’d have sold out of them long ago,” rants Healy on the phone from Bay Street. “Everybody is nervous as hell about them (energy stocks), but with oil prices over $25 (recently in the $30 US per barrel range), why is everyone whining and sniffling about them?

“The stocks have come through with spades. Quite frankly, those people can take their concerns and go away. Give me $25 and up and the oilpatch is just fine, thanks. And anybody who thinks that OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is faltering are out of their minds. To me, that’s a
classic level of ignorance about what is going on out there.”

For Healy’s THREE STARS, see Financial Edge column headlined 'Gold and oil safe harbours in stormy market'.

* SAGE WORDS: “This is the Big Daddy of bear markets, one hell-bent son of a bitch that is intent on doing untold damage.”

– Richard Russell, the market guru who published the oldest newsletter on Wall Street, the 44-year-old Dow Theory Letters.



HOT ALBERTA STOCK: Big Rock Brewery
BR-TSX $7.10
Up 90 cents (+14.5%) on 8,100 shares (for week ending Sept. 20).
Investors gave the Calgary brewery a little fizz on news the company had approved a plan to reorganize into an income trust, but they weren't exactly frothing at the mouth. Income trusts have become all the rage in this bear market. Yet, after the Friday afternoon halt for the news, there were a mere seven trades totalling 2,600 shares giving the stock a 90-cent pop.



COLD ALBERTA STOCK: Biomira
BRA-TSX $1.51
Down $2.16 (-58.9%) on 1,306,300 shares (for week ending Sept. 20).
Edmonton-based Biomira incited a mutiny by shareholders with news last week that the Phase III clinical trials of its lead breast cancer drug, Theratope, were producing discouraging results. Research Capital
maintained a hold rating on the stock and reduced its 12-month target from $5.75 to $3. Biomira isn’t giving up the drug and plans to complete the trials.