These stocks are
already moving, so he's giving the latter. Big deal. If I were him and had clients besides
myself and my firm, I'd probably say the same thing. This situation is evolving at an
explosive pace and the longs are winning.He's rooting now from the
sidelines, but wishing he'd been more of a seer 3 months ago.
that isnt my take on the situation.....
and yes Analysts are paid to pump'em and dump'em.....
but he isnt pumping them so hard at these levels...well...the levels they were Thursday I suppose....and we will see about Fridays levels..
"Merrill Lynch last week picked up
coverage of the four main players in the Internet navigation business --
Yahoo!, Excite, Infoseek and Lycos -- with positive comments that added
some fuel to the Internet fire. Jonathan Cohen, who joined Merrill a few
weeks ago from UBS, issued "3-1" ratings on Yahoo!, Excite and Infoseek,
and a "2-1" rating on Lycos. In Merrill-speak, a "3-1" means neutral
short-term, buy long-term. The slightly more bullish "2-1" translates to
accumulate short-term, buy long-term. Cohen unveiled his first Merrill-paid
writings on the stocks Tuesday morning. By the time the stocks closed for
the day Tuesday afternoon, Excite had gained 7 1/8 to 76, Infoseek had
improved 4 1/16 to 25 5/8, Lycos had ticked up 3 1/8 to 68 5/8 and Yahoo!
had advanced 1 7/8 to 114 7/8. Not a bad day's work: In one trading
session, the market cap of those four stocks combined had increased by $370
million. And the stocks had even bigger days on Wednesday and Thursday
The interesting thing is, anyone moderately familiar with Cohen's work
could have figured out what was coming. At UBS, where they use a similar
rating system, but without the short-term, long-term feature, Cohen had
neutral ratings on Yahoo!, Excite and Infoseek, and an accumulate rating on
Lycos.His views didn't change; his employer changed. Nonetheless, the
Street seemed relieved that Cohen, an independent sort who has been known
to issue the odd sell recommendation on occasion, took a generally sunny
stance on the stocks. So they all moved higher....
Cohen advises investors daring
enough to try to value Internet stocks to throw out trendy measures like
"page views" and "hits" and focus instead on revenues. After all, he notes,
what matters is not just attracting eyeballs, but "the ability to monetize
those traffic streams." At the moment, he notes, the four players in the
search-engine group trade at between 10 and 40 times forward revenues.
Cohen sees those valuations as a vote of confidence that over the long
term, the companies can generate significant growth, and high-margin
profitability. Imagine what will happen if they can't pull it off" |
