CheckFree Shares Retrace Losses in Market Rally
New York, Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- CheckFree Holdings Corp. shares recovered from a 19 percent decline to gain 5 percent as a broader market rally helped the Internet bill payment company's stock overcome investor pessimism that it isn't attracting as many customers as first thought.
Shares of Norcross, Georgia-based CheckFree, which routes bills between companies and consumers on the World Wide Web, rose 4 to 89 5/8 in Nasdaq trading of 4.9 million shares, five times the daily average of the last three months. The shares had declined to 69 3/4 in early trading but recovered along with other technology stocks as the Nasdaq Composite Index erased an early 16-point decline to rise 155.
Salomon Smith Barney analyst Richard Zandi said fewer consumers than he expected used the CheckFree bill payment service offered by Yahoo! Inc. in its first three months despite a free trial offer to new customers. Yahoo, the No. 1 Internet directory, in September began allowing its 105 million users to pay bills online through CheckFree, and last month began allowing people to receive bills over the Internet.
``Consumers aren't clamoring to pay their bills online' on Yahoo, Zandi wrote.
The CheckFree/Yahoo service attracted 107,000 visitors in September, its first month of operation, 48,000 in October and 117,000 in November, according to Media Metrix, which tracks Internet traffic.
Zandi said he now expects CheckFree to lose 44 cents a share in fiscal 2000, more than the 36-cent loss he predicted earlier. He said the company's pending $250 million acquisition of BlueGill Technologies Inc. would reduce earnings at first.
``I don't know what (Zandi's) expectations were but those numbers are not disappointing from CheckFree's perspective,' said Terrie O'Hanlon, a company spokeswoman.
O'Hanlon added that Yahoo is only one of 59 sites where consumers can pay bills online using CheckFree's service and that it's still ``early' for Yahoo.
CheckFree shares soared 347 percent last year, partly on optimism about its Yahoo partnership and deals with other Internet sites. The stock has declined 14 percent so far this year along with many Internet companies. |
