Buying Spree Continues in Net Sector
Is there anything out there to discourage investors from buying? Other than taking some profits so they can buy a more expensive bottle of champagne, not really.
TheStreet.com Internet Sector
index was up 13.47, or 1.2%, at 1175.69 in recent trading, though that already was off its all-time high of 1192.22, reached soon after today's open.
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
was up 29 5/16, or 7%, at 433, becoming the latest stock to benefit from a price-target increase.
Argus Research
raised its price target on Yahoo! to 550 from 385, but that still pales next to the 1,000 price targets slapped on
Commerce One
(CMRC)
and
Qualcomm
(QCOM) - Get Report
over the past couple of weeks.
Among Internet stocks in the news,
Talk City
(TCTY)
was up 2 1/8, or 10%, at 24 after it was prominently mentioned in Gene Marcial's Inside Wall Street column in this week's
Business Week
. Same old routine. A money manager, this one from
Watson Investment Partners
, says the stock is ''an undiscovered and undervalued stock in the crowded Internet world." He decided to share that with the rest of the world but also waited until after he bought some. Talk City provides interactive services such as online conferences, according to the piece. Its customers include
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
,
American Express
(AXP) - Get Report
,
IBM
(IBM) - Get Report
and
Hewlett-Packard
(HWP)
.
Marcial also revisits
Safeguard Scientifics
(SFE) - Get Report
, a stock he first plugged in February. Its price has increased fivefold since then. Marcial again quotes a money manager, who claimed the stock was still undervalued based on its stakes in 14 publicly traded Internet companies and 200 that are privately held.
TSC's
Adam Lashinsky
took a more cautious view of Safeguard back in
September. Safeguard was up 5 9/16, or 3.5%, at 166 1/2.
Elsewhere,
Internet Capital Group
(ICGE)
was up 3, or 2%, at 167 1/2. The business-to-business e-commerce company said today it acquired an interest in
MetalSite L.P.
from
Weirton Steel
(WS)
for approximately $180 million in stock and cash.
In
Robertson Stephens'
weekly Web report, e-commerce analyst Lauren Cooks Levitan wrote that she believes many e-tailers will report mixed fourth-quarter results, with "better-than-expected top-line growth not necessarily accompanied by comparable improvement on the bottom line." Strong demand led to increased costs to get the product to customers, she wrote.
But Levitan also noted that last year,
Amazon.com
(AMZN) - Get Report
announced fourth-quarter
sales in the first week of the new year, and she expects other e-tailers to disclose holiday sales early as well, perhaps giving the sector a lift.
Salomon Smith Barney
put out a note earlier this week indicating it sees Amazon's sales coming in around $700 million, sharply higher than the $580 million previously forecast, though analysts did not see upside to its per-share loss estimate of 48 cents. Amazon was up 3/16 at 83 11/16 in early trading.
