Congratutions Mark, we always knew you liked to bet on winners.
>Wall Street expects Amazon to lose 26 cents a share for the fourth quarter,
I'm sure sooner or later Amzn will justify its $5.2 billion market cap!!
Btw
Lets go after Internet advertising companies now we've got them on their knees.
>1/8/01 2:25 PM ET
Merrill Lynch Internet analyst Henry Blodget is taking yet a dimmer view of Internet advertising in general and DoubleClick (DCLK:Nasdaq - news) in particular.
Related Stories
Internet Advertising Firm Engage Upsets Smaller Clients
Online Ad Revenue Declines for First Time
Mediaplex, MessageMedia Add to Woes of Net Ad Business
The Internet bull, whose enthusiasm for the sector has been sorely tested over the past few months, once again revised downward his outlook for the Internet advertising market in 2001. Blodget is now predicting that U.S. Internet advertising will stay flat at $8 billion for the year. Six months ago he was predicting 30% to 40% growth, but he'd already cut his growth forecast to 15%.
DoubleClick, the Internet advertising bellwether that is expected to report its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday -- one day after Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq - news) -- will meet its recently lowered expectations, Blodget said, though he added that there's still a risk of a downside miss.
Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial are predicting a loss of 2 cents a share on revenue of $127 million for the fourth quarter, worse than its third-quarter profit of 3 cents a share on revenue of $135 million. (Merrill has done underwriting for DoubleClick.)
DoubleClick's shares were trading off 50 cents, or 5%, at $9.50 each, Monday afternoon.
Blodget attributed his Net advertising reappraisal to dot-com advertising cutbacks that were "faster and deeper" than expected, combined with a weaker overall advertising market.
But Blodget did hold out a measure of optimism. After their long fall, advertising-driven Net stocks have stabilized over the past six weeks, he said, adding, "We think they are in the bottoming process." The Net advertising market should strengthen in the second half of 2001, he said, and the worst quarter should be the first, when ad revenues will probably show a decline of 10% to 15% from the fourth quarter. |
