In Arizona, the vastness of the landscape is unimaginable. Heading toward Phoenix on route I-10 west, Picacho peak looms large some 30 miles off in the distance. Drivers wiz along at speeds far in excess of the legal limits just to traverse the vastness with some semblance of timeliness. If you have never seen the Grand Canyon, the brilliant coloring aside, be on alert that its indescribable immensity so proximal is actually dizzying as it plays with your sense of reality. It is in that context that one truly feels an insignificant entity in the scheme of things real.

So, as I was truly feeling small one night, I thought it would be uplifting to look in on the really small. Nanotechnology and stocks within that realm came to mind. But alas, it came to fruition as the obvious is not quite so palpable.

Before I lead you on a snipe hunt, I should state what I presume as fact. Nanotechnology typically tends to present as a process rather than a product. These processes run the gamut from health, energy, science, and information technology. For the record, "nano" is a unit of measurement, which is "10 to the minus nine" of the prime unit. That is one nanometer is 0.000000001 meter (or one thousand millionth). Human hair ranges from 17 to 181 micrometers (millionths of a meter).

The search for companies involved in the technology led me to the PowerShares Lux Nanotech Portfolio Fund (PXN: sentiment, chart, options)