MarketWatch Times It Right
Good timing never hurts.
MarketWatch.com
(MKTW)
rose more than 500% from its IPO price of 17. Shares climbed as high as 130 on their first day of trading as investors poured into the latest Internet IPO with a fervor like the
Beanie Baby
craze. The stock ended the day up 80 points at 97 1/2.
"It was the first IPO of the year, and it's an Internet IPO," said Peony Kao, analyst with the IPO research firm
Renaissance Capital
, which manages the
(IPOSX)
IPO Fund. "Investors were waiting for a new IPO and got a hot one." Kao declined to comment on whether Renaissance invested in the MarketWatch IPO.
MarketWatch is a financial Web site that provides intraday commentary on the stock market.
Data Broadcasting
(DBCC)
and
CBS
TheStreet Recommends
(CBS) - Get CBS Corporation Class B Report
each retained 38% of the company after the offering. Data Broadcasting, which had a tremendous run-up in advance of the IPO, could not stay on MarketWatch's coattails and closed down 9 7/16 at 21 3/4.
The market value of MarketWatch, based on the 11.75 million shares of stock offered and around a 100 stock price, is approximately $1.175 billion. To put things in perspective,
Dow Jones
(DJ)
, which publishes the
Wall Street Journal
in both print and interactive editions, along with
Barron's
among a number of other newspapers and magazines, has a market value around $3.3 billion. A more in-depth look at MarketWatch can be seen
here.
Buyer Beware
A number of the big names in Internet stocks succumbed to profit-taking following incredible run-ups.
Shares of
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
fell for the fourth straight day. The stock reached an all-time high of 445 on Monday ahead of its earnings report but has dropped more than 100 points since then, despite having bested earnings expectations. Yahoo! closed down 27 1/16 at 317.
Also continuing its fall from favor is
broadcast.com
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, down another 13 3/4 points today to 139 13/16 after reaching a high of 289 on Tuesday.
Among the day's winners was
Xoom.com
(XMCM)
, which soared 8 9/16 to 57. The gains came after
Infospace.com
(INSP) - Get Inspire Medical Systems Inc. Report
said it would provide online white and yellow pages and classifieds for the electronic commerce site. Infospace.com rose 2 1/2 to 55 1/2.
