Within 10 years, some roboticists say, personal utility robots will have the ability to do everything from cleaning your toilets and washing dishes to keeping your schedule and monitoring your vital signs. That may actually be a pessimistic projection. On the higher-tech side, they will automate advanced microchip and biotech production lines. They will also perform sophisticated surgeries that are impossible today.

If this seems far-fetched, I would caution you to think twice. Think back 10 years. Did you think then that we would be using the advanced Web-connected cell phone/PDA/media player devices that are common today? If you are a physician, as are many of my readers, did you foresee the current state of medical robotics?

Additionally, the medical industry has a particular advantage during a recession. Health care is one of the sectors most protected from business cycles and economic slowdowns. We cut back or eliminate lots of things when budgets get tight. Non-elective surgery isn’t one of them.

Moreover, the medical robotics industry is far from unproven. For an example of the kind of profits that exist in this barely tapped field, let’s take a look at Intuitive Surgical.

In January 2003, you could have picked up Intuitive Surgical for $6.02 per share. As I write, Intuitive is trading around $200. Prior to the current fluctuations, it was trading around $300. Its revenues and growth prospects justify that price. Even if it never recovers, which is an absurd assumption, Intuitive will have increased in value 3,000% percent in five years. I consider that a decent profit and a good start at true transformational status.

Though Intuitive has lots of room to grow, I’m not recommending it. It’s a bargain during this downturn, but I try to keep our stocks around or under the $10-dollar mark, to give my readers more buying options.

Anyway, its market cap is relatively big, so we’d be pretty diluted buying today. My goal is to get readers into transformative stocks before the average investor figures out what’s going on.

So I’m going to recommend another medical robotics stock. Today, there are two relatively well-known candidates in the field. Both are still in the small-cap stage, and both have gone after the heart surgery market. Both have made their own mistakes, and both are in the process of overcoming FDA rulings. Both are currently losing money, as did Intuitive in its early days, but they’re both also gaining in sales. Both get revenues from the sales of disposables needed for each new surgery, as well their surgical systems.

In my current issue of Breakthrough Technology Alert, I analyze the two companies and select the stock that’s best equipped to survive and thrive in the short and long runs.

Yours for transformational profits,
Patrick Cox

November 5, 2008

This Small Robotics Company Could Be the Next Microsoft was originally featured in the Penny Sleuth.