China, Japan Internet Stocks Rise as US Investors Take Notice
New York, Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of China.com Corp, Pacific Internet Ltd. and Internet Initiative Japan Inc. rose on growing investor interest in U.S.-traded shares of Asian Internet companies.
Hong Kong-based China.com rose 12 3/16, or 19 percent, to 74 7/8 on trading of 3.9 million shares. Singapore-based Pacific Internet rose 16, or 53 percent, to 46 1/4 on trading of 4.8 million shares. Tokyo-based Internet Initiative rose 1 3/8, or 1.8 percent, to 79 1/2, after earlier touching 91 15/16, on trading of 2.6 million shares.
Ben Holmes, president of ipoPros.com, said investor interest in Asian Internet stocks was piqued when Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. analyst Jeff Camp initiated coverage of Internet Initiative with an ``outperform' rating Aug. 31. Investors are still responding to the rating, he said.
``We've been drilling down on our own (U.S.) Internet stocks, and the market has gone quiet, so once Internet Initiative started to get active people started to look at the whole sector,' Holmes said. ``The sector is basically these three stocks, which has been ignored. All three were decent performers since their IPOS and have continued to do well.'
China.com Tuesday said it will offer Internet service in Hong Kong with partner America Online Inc., which owns 10 percent of China.com, by the end of this year.
The number of Internet users in China is expected to grow to 16.1 million in 2003 from 2.4 million last year, in Hong Kong to 2.2 million from 700,000, and in Taiwan to 4.4 million from 1 million, according to projections by China.com last month.
Sep/09/1999 18:13 |
