Mark, here's a leader for you to stick to. Like I've said dozens of times...Betting on companies who derive their income from I-Net advertising was one hell of a fad.
The the bubble sure burst on that new economy group.
Btw
Yhoo is on sale too.
>Last Update: 12:15 PM ET Dec 11, 2000 NewsWatch
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NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - If no news is good news, then DoubleClick investors better brace themselves.
The leading ad-server said Monday it will hold a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter outlook after the close of trading.
With a continually softening online ad market, investors seem to think the chances for a rosy forecast are slim: Shares in DoubleClick (DCLK: news, msgs) dropped 38 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $11.63.
Certainly, the warning signs of a financial crunch at the company have been there for some time. Last week, the company announced it would cut about 10 percent of its workforce in the face of a softening online ad market. In mid-November, it low-balled a previously announced $9.25 per share purchase price for AtPlan (APLN: news, msgs) to just $8. And, in early October, after a disappointing third quarter report, DoubleClick warned that fourth-quarter earnings would fall below analyst expectations.
Multiple downgrades followed on the heels of that revelation and the stock slipped into single-digits - a fate it had avoided until that point - although it has subsequently recovered slightly. It started the year trading at over $135.
Analyst Chris Hansen of Banc of America Securities in San Francisco said of today's call that "it is probably a pretty safe assumption that it is not good [since] it comes on the heels of downward guidance" from various other ad-dependent online companies.
"The number of companies [in the sector] that will pre-announce the fourth quarter and the first quarter of next year in the next 30 days will probably exceed the number who don't," Hansen predicted, as slower online ad revenues hit everyone from "portals to online content sites to ad networks who derive their living from advertising."
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