What's Up With itemus?
Tue, Jul. 18, 2000 16:39
By Thien Huynh,
Canada-iNvest.com
Some normalcy returned to itemus ( ITM) shares on Tuesday after the stock rallied on heavy volume the day before. Executives from itemus
were unavailable for comment today and few analysts wanted to speak about what might have propelled the stock at this time. But a company
official told Canada iNvest.com that there might be news tomorrow.
The technology incubator’s stock saw its volume jump to 1,500,505 on Monday, rivaling the levels of bigger players such as BCE. The stock price
surged more than 20% , opening at $1.49 and closing at $1.70, leaving both investors and analysts wondered whats up.
“I haven’t seen any recent news on this for some time. Usually you can tell what’s going on by examining who is doing the buying. Yesterday, the
buying side was spread amongst a lot of buyers. It appears that this was a case of a lot of retail buying. There wasn’t much institutional buying,“
says Fred Ketchen of ScotiaMcleod.
There were 873 trades made on itemus on Monday. None of them were block trades. The last block trade was 124,500 at $1.79 back on May
17th by RBC Dominion Securities.
Investors fearing a case of “pump and dump” shouldn’t be worried. Analysts unofficially covering the company have faith in itemus’ management
and strategy. Even with Monday’s increase, the stock is still considered a bargain.
“Even if this was a case of pump and dump, this stock is still a good buy at close to $2.00. A lot of analysts are looking at its valuations before
opting to officially cover it. Second quarter results are due out in August and I don’t think there will be anything to rejoice over but I think the
company is headed in the right direction. I’m curious as to exactly when the reports will come out,” says one analyst. “The heads of this company
even have said that they don’t want to see the stock skyrocket too early, preferring to wait for actual growth. You can see the pieces of this story
getting put in place with new divisions being established, people getting hired and of course, acquisitions.”
All this frenzy over a company that is virtually only five months old. itemus provides venture funding and development support for Internet
technology companies. The company was formerly mining firm Vengold before hiring technology whiz Jim Tobin and attacking the Internet
market.
The company recently brought on Jim Burns to head its new itemus Solutions Inc., an internet and wireless e-business branch. Burns has worked
with companies such as Netscape, Citibank, and Bell Canada among others. itemus currently has around 50 employees but hopes to reach the
200 mark within the year.
Some of itemus’ other investments include Payanybill, Antarti.ca Sytems Inc., and Global Services Network Inc. But the crown jewel of the
company remains Datagistics Corp. from Atlanta. Datagistics is considered a “disruptive technology” because its broadband technology could
replace narrow analog Internet connections and therefore unbalance the current market place.
Canada Invest will have a feature interview with itemus’ CFO, Anthony Iantorno, Wednesday afternoon. Iantorno will talk about the itemus rally,
the company’s plans, and the release of Q2 results.
The stock went back down to earth on Tuesday, closing at $1.68. Volume dropped to a still impressive 842,143 shares. |
