The weekly Robbie Stephens Internet Report has become a great source for shorts since they continue to pimp losers shamelessly. Check out their take on INSW, which literally blew up on its shareholders this week.
"INSWEB STUMBLES
InsWeb reported a first-quarter EPS of ($0.37) on revenue of $8.6 million, modestly ahead of our projections of ($0.39) and $8.2 million. Despite stronger-than-anticipated revenue, transaction revenue was lower than expected at $7.1 million. This occurred despite higher site traffic, as the conversion rate dropped from 30%-plus to near 20%. One positive note was that site traffic was up 44% sequentially, with more than 3.9 million unique user sessions. Shopping sessions completed totaled 772,000, a 170% increase over the year-ago period and up 27% sequentially.
InsWeb also reported that State Farm, the company's largest customer and currently accounting for about 30% of revenue, chose to not renew its participation agreement. As a result, the company is guiding Q2 revenue projections down to approximately $5 million. InsWeb is reducing its work force by 10% and intends to pare sales and marketing expenses to align with sales expectations. In turn, we are lowering our revenue projections for 2000 from $50 million into the $30- to $35-million range, and downgrading the stock from Strong Buy to Long Term Attractive. |
