Hey did you check to see if you got many hits on that pic of yours? Maybe we can start charging for it, or put up banners. Need to work fast on that IPO. Anal-isys are running out of things to say. <snip deleted>
SUNGLASS HUT INTERNATIONAL (RAYS) 9 5/16 +1 15/16. "I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member." Of course, Groucho Marx had no idea what effect acceptance into the Internet brotherhood could have on one's net worth. Sunglass Hut, a Coral Gables, FL-based retailer of sunglass and watches, has officially been pinned today by the Internet momentum crowd after the company announced the acquisitions of two Internet sites -- shades.com and SwissArmyDepot.com. The stock soared 56% in early trading before retreat in overall market (Dow -131) and Internet stocks took some of the air out of Sunglass Hut's shares. RAYS has advanced almost 70% since late-December when a Fortune.com magazine columnist reported that the company would attempt to put a shine in sales by going online. While we at Briefing.com learned a long time ago that online traders, Nasdaq market makers and mutual fund managers (the ones who appear on t.v. with that world-is-rosy gleam in their eyes) are almost completely devoid of a conscience, we are just starting to understand to what extent Wall Street analysts have been hypnotized by the glow of this market. For example, this morning, with RAYS shares already bid sharply higher, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter raised its rating on the stock from "neutral" to "buy." Now, this is the same firm that maintained its "neutral" rating and slashed estimates in November when the stock was trading at less than $5 per share. Now, with the shares having swollen 50%, the firm is lured back into the stock by the announcement of the acquisition of two tiny Web sites. It's one thing when speculators bid up a stock in an attempt to make a fast buck. But when analysts start piling onto the bandwagon (especially retail analysts), we begin to worry about the legs of the bull market. If everyone is hanging out over the bow filling full of themselves, who is left to navigate the icebergs? |
