Net noise! Internet stocks are all the rage
After two short-term rate cuts in the past two months, Wall Street anxiously awaits the Federal Reserve Board's Nov. 17 meeting. Analysts are expecting another quarter-point reduction this time around.
"There is a speculative froth in the Internet stocks, but Greenspan will have to grit his teeth and bear it," said Bill Meehan, chief market analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.
It might be a case of counting chickens before they're hatched, but aggressive investors are snapping up online commerce and Internet portal stocks in record volume.
On Tuesday, online auctioneer eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY) rallied up another 27 7/8 to 130 7/8. Onsale Inc. (Nasdaq:ONSL) added 2 9/16 to 20 9/16 and Egghead.com Inc. (Nasdaq:EGGS) moved up 2 7/16 to close at 13 7/8.
What's good for electronic commerce is good for major Internet portals such as Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO), Excite Inc. (Nasdaq:XCIT) and Lycos Inc. (Nasdaq:LCOS).
Yahoo! stormed up another 12 1/4 to a 52-week high of 177 while Excite and Lycos added 4 1/8 and 2 3/4 a share, respectively. Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN) pushed up 4 7/8 to 131 3/4 while CDNow Inc. (Nasdaq:CDNW) and N2K Inc. (Nasdaq:NTKI) gained 3 9/16 and 3 11/16 a share, respectively.
Even K-Tel International Inc. (Nasdaq:KTEL) jumped 11 3/8 to 22 15/16 after it announced that its online music and home video service will be offered on Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT) Web-based shopping channel.
"There is certainly a speculative element in the Internets, but they are one of the fastest-growing parts of the market," said Jack Shaughnessy, chief investment strategist at Advest. "This recent rally in stocks has been largely in the big-cap names."
Speaking of big-cap stocks, Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC) raced up 1 9/16 to a 52-week high of 97 9/16. IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) picked up 3 3/4 to 155 1/8 and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD) rose 13/16 to 25 13/16.
Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:DELL) picked up 1 5/16 to 70 5/16. Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE:CPQ) closed unchanged at 32 7/16 and Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW) lost 11/16 to 58 5/16. Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL) fell 1 1/2 to 35 1/8.
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) added 1 3/8 to 112 1/16. Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq:ORCL) shed 5/16 to 31 1/2 and Netscape Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:NSCP) tumbled 1 to 28 1/8.
Among widely held networking stocks, Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO) trimmed 1/8 to 66 7/8; Ascend Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:ASND) rose 7/16 to 49 15/16 and 3Com Corp. (Nasdaq:COMS) closed off 1 3/16 to 33 1/2.
Reuters contributed to this report.