Gst,
A buy and hold on double click (Dclk) could have busted you.
Please remember some greater fool paid 135 for it.
Double bust is the only short I have left...and I think I want to keep it.
>
New York, April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of DoubleClick Inc., the largest online advertising company, fell as much as 14 percent after it said its first-quarter loss widened as expenses more than doubled.
The company's shares fell 7 13/16 to 52 in late trading. Its shares, which earlier touched 51 5/8, have fallen as much as 59 percent this year.
DoubleClick sells advertising space on more than 1,500 Web sites and spending has increased as it faces competition from CMGI Inc., which has been acquiring a larger share of the Internet advertising market. New York-based DoubleClick also is under investigation for its information-gathering practices.
``The privacy issue has served as a little bit of an overhang for the stock,' said Lowell Singer, analyst at Robertson Stephens. ``Clearly, DoubleClick hasn't responded in the last two days like the broader market.'
``Because they really are the franchise name in the space, investor expectations get raised so high, it's almost difficult, if not impossible for the company to meet those,' said Singer, who rates DoubleClick shares ``buy' without predicting a price.
The company's loss widened to $18.4 million, or 16 cents a share, from $8.57 million, or 8 cents, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue almost tripled to $110 million from $39.4 million. Operating expenses climbed to $89.5 million from $33.1 million.
``Our revenue tripled and our expenses doubled,' said Kevin Ryan, DoubleCleck president and chief operating officer. ``If you continued that trend out, that's the reason why all the analysts on Wall Street are forecasting that we will be profitable in the second half of this year.'
Expenses at DoubleClick increased mostly from hiring costs, Ryan said. The company added about 450 employees in the quarter, a 30 percent increase, he said.
Matched Expectations
The company said excluding amortization and non-cash charges, its loss widened to $13.2 million, or 11 cents a share, from $6.07 million, or 6 cents, in the year-ago period. That matched the 11- cent average loss expected by analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has started investigating DoubleClick's information-gathering practices after an advocacy group complained about combining data gleaned from a customer's Web activities with a marketing database. The Electronic Privacy Information Center said the company broke a pledge to keep private any information about Internet users.
``We believe that DoubleClick's stock could trade sideways until the FTC investigation is concluded,' Singer said. |
