It's up against the market today - although most of the move has likely taken place already (buy the rumor, sell the news).
Many internet stocks, like Amazongonenuts.com, are retail driven stock plays - the more they gain widespread visibility in the media through advertising and articles, the more the stock is driven, often to manic "tulip bulb" levels. That's great for the stock price in the short-term but could be disastrous in the long-term. Amazon's gamble has been that spending huge sums of money will buy them a permanent level of brand awareness that will somehow translate into profits. So far they have engineered a fantasticly efficient way to loose a fortune and rack up debt and options commitments that will be a drain on profits for several years. Fiscally, Lycos has taken a much more conservative approach to growing the business. They aren't buying widespread recognition in our media crazed socitey, but they have a much better chance of being competitive in the long-run and showing profits, IMO.
Maybe waiting for a pull-back makes snse. I like the idea of shorting or selling calls against Amazongoneamuck.com and buying Lycos. Given some time, AMZN will fall from fairyland and Lycos will get greater recognition trhough what realy matters - bottom-line performance. |
