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Net Stocks Open Mostly Lower

The downturn is being led by a drop in Amazon.com.

SAN FRANCISCO -- With earnings reports mostly out of the way, profit-taking is the morning's watchword, with Amazon.com (AMZN) - Get Free Report leading the way down.

Some of the stock's weakness stemmed from an Alan Abelson piece in this week's edition of

Barron's

. Abelson discusses the company's operating losses and value of the stock, saying he thinks "it's worth at most 25, or just as easily, something under 10." The stock was down 12 1/16, or 7%, at 160.

Shares of

RealNetworks

(RNWK) - Get Free Report

ran up last week ahead of today's

introduction of its new streaming media software,

RealJukebox

. In addition, the company is expected to announce a number of alliances. After trading higher on the opening, the stock has fallen along with other Internet stocks and was down 10 7/8, or 5%, at 210 5/8.

After gaining more than 70 points last week,

priceline.com

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was down 11 1/8, or 7%, at 151 1/4. Also,

Infospace

(INSP) - Get Free Report

, which rallied last week after beating earnings estimates, was down 8 5/16, or 6%, at 135.

theglobe.com

(TGLO)

is one of the few Net companies trading higher after reporting earnings this morning. The company reported a first-quarter loss of 47 cents a share this morning vs. the two-analyst estimate of a 55-cent loss by

First Call

. It was up 4 3/8, or 7%, at 64 1/2.

On the merger front,

Philips Electronics

(PHG) - Get Free Report

has reached a friendly pact to buy chipmaker

VLSI Technology

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in a deal valued at more than $1 billion, bringing to an end Philips' nearly two-month hostile takeover attempt. Philips said it will pay $21 a share for VLSI, a hefty premium above its hostile bid that valued the chipmaker at $17 a share, or $777 million. VLSI was up 1 15/16, or 10%, at 20 13/16. Phillips was up 2 1/8, or 2.5%, at 87 1/4.