CRYONICS UK

Cryonics Relies On Advances Of Technology

 By John De Rivaz

 Cryonics relies on advances of technology in order to fulfil its objective of the revival of patients into good youthful health at some time in the future. When someone is cryopreserved and revived, it will seem as though no time has passed between the moment they last lose consciousness in the 21st century until the time they are revived. If they are never revived, they will never know it. It is not possible for them to be revived into a society that is technologically similar or less technologically advanced than the present one. That is to say, such people cannot observe a future without
massive technological advance.
We have seen the technology boom between September 1999 and March 2001 in which stocks rose at a rate of 25% per fortnight. Some stocks went up by a factor of ten to one in a month or so. It appeared in January 2000 that the boom since September was over, yet anyone selling then and paying  capital taxation would have lost the  benefit of three more months massive rises. However the financial year end tax selling in March 2000 drove the market down, and despite a rally later in the year, it has now fallen to September 1999 levels, having been much lower for a very brief period after the terrorism in September 2001.
These events are foremost in most investors' minds and few will now consider technology stocks. However there is an inbuilt growth factor here that is hard to get away from - that is Moore's Law which specifies a growth rate for semiconductor advances. That translates into a stock growth of about 25% per year for technology. If one goes back far enough, on a long term basis this is the figure that we get for technology stocks over the past decades. Not 25% per fortnight, but 25% per year. Yet most people were only willing to invest during the boom near the top, which of course was their undoing, they have lost over half their money at present day quotations. However now the markets are depressed and don't even have the 25% per year that they were due since September 1999. This suggests another boom over the next few years, probably followed by another "bust". I must say that the graph of share value plotted against time shows exactly the same formation that occurred before the last boom appearing again. Another overdone boom would be a shame as it upsets investors, but taken over the long term the realities of Moore's law should prevail and a ten times gain in ten years should be attainable.
If you invested in March 2001 then a ten times gain is unlikely to be attainable by March 2011, but investors who hold on that long will probably see a 4 or 5x increase in the value of their holdings. But equally, investing now could see a gain in excess of ten times appearing by ten years time. The bad news is the volatility of the markets and the possibility that when you want to sell there is a dip. Trying to sell on a peak is impossible - you never know when they occur until well after the event. Once the market starts falling dramatically, you never even get the quoted price for your shares or units.
As I said earlier, I suspected a peak in January, 2000 - quite wrong. In fact, when the markets are moving rapidly, buying and selling is tricky for the individual. He is sure to be parted from some of his money by the professionals. However if you invest with the aim of getting a very substantial gain (three or four times at least) you only lose some of it, not all of it. If you invest trying to get say 10% by trading a stock within a week (which would translate into a lot per year if you could do it consistently) your 10% can easily go in market spread and professional expenses. Selling is the hard part. One way around this is to use a Unit Trust (they are changing into Open Ended Investment Companies, or OEICS) where a professional manager buys and sells individual stocks for you. Examples of technology ones are Aberdeen Technology, Henderson Global Technology, and so on. Most unit trust managers have a technology fund. If the ten times in ten years concept continues, you could invest £7,000 (or up to £580/month) into a technology fund ISA and see £70,000 after ten years. But you still have to live with wild fluctuations in the markets. At least you don't have to live with the worry that "stock X has gone up and down, will it ever go up again ". You can make a judgement and move the unit trust from technology into a "safer" sector if the growth gets well over the 25% per year line and back again if it gets below, but you are still subject to charges for doing this. If it is within an ISA there is no capital taxation of up to 40% to worry about. You may think that if you have "only" £7,000 to invest then you will not have to worry about capital taxation. However if you are planning to take it out or change your investment when it has reached ten times that amount, then yes you will have to pay a substantial penalty to the taxation authorities as a result of your successful choice of investment. Additional charges for an ISA containing a single unit trusts are usually not that onerous - the unit trust managers run them to encourage people to buy into the unit trusts. You can often switch to another unit trust within the same management group for lower charges, at least once or twice a year.
This article is written under the right to free speech and is not intended to be professional advice. You have to make the choice of where to invest.
Get as much advice as you can, and then form your own opinion, but do bear in mind your special insights into the world as cryonicists - no stockbroker or life insurance salesman will have these insights.