by Dave Nicklaus

To glance at a stock-price chart for Zoltek is to see an apparent case of history repeating itself.

The shares, which were under $2 in early 2003, are all the way up to $32.14 today. They've tripled in the last year alone as attention from James Cramer, the well-known TV stock tout, has lured momentum investors into the stock.

This looks hauntingly familiar to longtime watchers of the Bridgeton company, which makes carbon-fiber composite materials. Between late 1993 and September 1997, Zoltek shares climbed from $1.75 to more than $63. Momentum investors, who buy a stock simply because it has been going up, couldn't get enough.

In hindsight, they drove the stock far too high. A few disappointing quarters caused the momentum investors to flee, and the shares didn't bottom out until they hit $1.45 in 2002.

Having ridden the up-and-down roller coaster once, Chief Executive Zsolt Rumy isn't eager to do it again. But, he says, he doesn't think he'll have to.

Zoltek's business, Rumy explains, is far more substantial now than it was in the 1990s. Then, he says, the company was building capacity in order to stimulate demand. The hope was to show potential carbon-fiber users that there would be plenty of the product available at a reasonable cost. Instead, a long slump in the aerospace industry, a heavy user of composites, contributed to a glut that caused Zoltek to shut its Abilene, Texas, plant for four and a half years.

Now, Zoltek is building capacity to fill actual orders. Revenue nearly doubled in the fiscal second quarter, which ended March 31. The company is adding five production lines at a Hungarian plant and restarting one at its plant in the Missouri Research Park.

If everything went wrong for the carbon-fiber industry during the dark years of 2001 to 2003, everything is going right now. New airliners like the Boeing 787 make intensive use of the lightweight carbon-based material. High energy prices are creating demand for electricity-generating windmills with carbon-fiber blades. Automakers such as BMW are also starting to replace metal parts with composites.

"They are in the right place at the right time," said Richard Todaro, a portfolio manager at Kennedy Capital Management in Creve Coeur. "You're in a lot better environment, given that Boeing and Airbus are buying all the composites they can get their hands on."

Kennedy owned more than 150,000 shares of Zoltek last year, although Todaro says they've all been sold. He says he still likes the company's fundamentals, although Zoltek is no longer the bargain it once was.

The attention from Cramer, who has plugged Zoltek repeatedly on his "Mad Money" show on CNBC, came at a good time for the company, Todaro said. "The company needed financing to expand, to put in all the equipment they needed. By driving up the stock price, it allows the company to issue fewer shares to finance their growth."

Actually, Cramer's enthusiasm seems to have waned. Last Friday, he referred to Zoltek as "played out."

But Rumy says he never watches the show, and isn't worried about the role of momentum players in this year's rise.

"It was crazy" in 1997 and 1998, but isn't now, he said. "This time our value is real, our future is clear. It's not a concept, it's a real business."

Or, as Rumy likes to say, he's come from the outhouse to the penthouse in a few short years.

And he much prefers the view from the penthouse.