American Science & Engineering, Inc. (ASEI)

claritee (20.11) Submitted: 5/14/08 4:34 PM : Start Price: $47.88 ASEI Score: -16.20

TSA buying elsewhere? ASEI announces lethargically today, and the stock ends up holding flat, last (poor) announcement it gained. I've been tracking this stock for years and after a great '05 it's mostly disappointed (as a company, less so as a stock). There was alot of 'mo' around homeland security, but ASE made most of its strides with the van in Iraq. With iraq winding down so has sales of same. Many have been hopeful that they'd get the big TSA contract, a few years back, but in-steps the ACLU and delays the project at least thru most of this year. In today's conf call, and in yesterdays PR, the company lauds itself for moving forward with the next stage in testing at LAX. Last year a competitor (I believe L-3) entered the mix with a milimeter wave soln vs. the Z-Xray. I checked TSA web this morning and there is a realease sitting there showing how they've been deploying the competitors product with no mention of ASE's soln. See: http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/100s_advtech_4summer.shtm , This should be worrisome and goes to show just how tuf it is for a minor player to break the ice of big Govt procurements. Still, I'm hopeful longterm, particular since they are getting some good play in international markets to partially offset their woeful domestic results. This stock usually gets a pop-up in the Sept timeframe corresponding with the end-of year Govt procurement season, btw.

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