The Globe and Mail

Xceed Mortgage

• No. 859 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $10.19 (2006)
• Dropped: -93%

Push the envelope in a traditional business—during a bubble—and it’s only a matter of time before it blows up.

Whether you called it “subprime” lending or something more genteel, like “specialized finance,” it looked like a cash machine back in 2006: Lend money to folks who didn’t qualify for a bank mortgage, but charge them a percentage point or two more in interest. Historic default rates for these customers were quite low, and house prices were going up, up, up. What could go wrong?

QLT Inc.

• No. 865 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $114.50 (2000)
• Dropped: -93%

Multinational giants can afford a lot more failures than plucky one-hit wonders.

QLT achieved every biotech start-up’s dream in 2000, when it received FDA approval for Visudyne, a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration, which can cause blindness. The Vancouver company tried to diversify into other drugs, but none proved successful. Within a few years, a drug developed by Genentech began eating into Visudyne’s sales. QLT’s been selling off assets ever since.

Editor's Note: QLT Inc.'s share price on the Toronto Stock Exchange declined from $114.50 in 2000 to $7.46 in May, 2011 year. Rusoro Mining Ltd.'s share price on the Canadian Venture Exchange declined from $4.15 in 2006 to 28 cents in May, 2011. Incorrect information originally appeared in this slideshow. This version has been corrected.

ATS Automation Tooling Systems

• No. 375 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $40.10 (2000)
• Dropped: -83%

It’s hard to avoid trouble if you’re in one battered industry, let alone several.

Since it made automated manufacturing and test systems for carmakers and other customers, ATS looked like a solid, non-dot-com way to play the tech boom. But the company was soon slammed by downturns in both auto and tech, plus the soaring loonie. A proposed IPO for its solar-cell division fizzled in ’07, and dissident shareholders took over the company.

Rusoro Mining

• No. 975 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $4.15 (2006)
• Dropped: -93%

Gold mining is so complicated, it might just be safer to buy the shiny stuff itself.

How could you lose money on a gold mining stock over the past few years? Look at Rusoro. Controlled by Moscow tycoon Vladimir Agapov, it produces 100,000 ounces a year. But its mines are in Venezuela, which can be politically, uh, problematic. In February, for instance, the government abruptly terminated a contract with Toronto’s Crystallex to develop the potentially huge Las Cristinas mine.

Editor's Note: QLT Inc.'s share price on the Toronto Stock Exchange declined from $114.50 in 2000 to $7.46 in May, 2011 year. Rusoro Mining Ltd.'s share price on the Canadian Venture Exchange declined from $4.15 in 2006 to 28 cents in May, 2011. Incorrect information originally appeared in this slideshow. This version has been corrected.

Com Dev International

• No. 514 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $19.55 (2000)
• Dropped: -87%

Spending on cutting-edge R&D doesn’t guarantee success.

Com Dev was one of several flashy Waterloo-area IPOs that took off in the 1990s, along with RIM. It made components for satellites and the hot new wireless sector, and revenue soared toward $200 million. But when sales plummeted after the bust, Com Dev had to sell its wireless interests to raise cash. Revenue has recovered, and it’s winning satellite contracts, but it is still grappling with costs.

WiLAN Inc.

• No. 890 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $86 (2000)
• Dropped: -91%

Technology is ephemeral. Litigation is forever.

The Calgary company’s business is “developing, protecting and monetizing intellectual property.” In the 1990s, that meant introducing the V-chip and groundbreaking wireless communication technology. Since the bust, WiLAN has concentrated on buying patents and licensing technology to players like Cisco. It has 180 patents—and a thriving business in patent litigation. Its share price has more than tripled over the past two years.

Stornoway Diamond

• No. 897 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $11.20 (2004)
• Dropped: -80%

Discoveries may be grand, but they won’t pay the rent.

Stornoway chairwoman Eira Thomas’s career has been a geology fairytale. In 1994, at age 26, she led the team that found the vast Diavik deposit in the Northwest Territories. In 2001, she found the Renard deposit in Northern Quebec. The discoveries made Thomas rich, but shareholders haven’t shared in her good fortune: Stornoway has yet to sell a big property or bring one into production.

Ballard Power

• No. 929 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $192 (2000)
• Dropped: -99%

Be wary of any start-up that promises to change the world.

In 1993, Geoff Ballard awed Vancouver reporters by drinking water from the tailpipe of a prototype bus powered by hydrogen fuel cells—the vehicle’s only emission. By 2000, Ballard’s market cap hit $18 billion, though automakers were struggling to develop a hydrogen car that cost less than $1 million. Ballard sold its interest in auto fuel cells to Ford and Daimler for $100 million in 2007 to concentrate on power for homes and businesses.

Arctic Glacier Income Fund

• No. 977 on ROB's Top 1000
• Peak price: $14.40 (2007)
• Dropped: -92%

Look past spin and financial gymnastics to see if a company is just selling a commodity.

Winnipeg’s Arctic Glacier bought dozens of ice cube providers to become one of the largest packaged-ice companies in North America, and claimed its product was far superior to the stuff you could make at home. In 2008, the early income trust convert suspended distributions to unitholders. A year later, its U.S. subsidiary pleaded guilty to participating in a price-fixing scheme.