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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kosmo who wrote (15149)	9/6/1999 6:20:00 PM
From: E. Davies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

How would excite be a $200 share stock with my valuation of it at $33? What I was doing was calculating what $33 of ATHM translates to in terms of the stock XCIT that existed before the merger. XCIT at the time of the merger was roughly 1/3 of the total market cap and since then the stock has split 2:1. So if $33 of ATHM today has roughly the same market cap as $3332 of XCIT before the merger. XCIT on the day before the merger closed at 133. ATHM closed that day at 63 (split adjusted). ATHM then fell 9 of the next 10 days and bottomed at 39 where we basically remain to this day. It was a loss of roughly 40% of its value- interestingly enough roughly the entire value of XCIT which was around 1/3 of the total market cap on the day of merger. People point to the Portland decision as the start of the period where ATHM drastically underperformed its piers. In reality the underperformance started the day the XCIT merger was completed. My opinion is that the market simply stopped placing any further value on XCIT. Nets trade primarily on emotion don't forget. When people think of ATHM a narrowband portal simply is not what they think of- they think of a broadband cable ISP. The emotional value of www.excite.com has in great part vanished. Does Excite really have no value? Of course not. However internet stocks are priced on the hope of the future 5 or even 10 years away. AMZN is priced as if it will someday become the worlds largest retailer, YHOO as if it will become the central meeting place of the entire internet. Excite for reasons I cannot fathom is losing viewers despite the fact that the internet continues to grow at an astounding pace. I see Excite fade from #2/#3 to #8 and still losing ground and I dont understand why. Lycos and goto and others simply appeared and stole away Excite's momentum. Without the promise of being a broadband site what would Excite be in 5 years? (Note: Excite does appear to have a better quality of users (spend longer at the site etc), but quantity is vital when you are building a brand) @home still has a great future. None of these "deals" we hear about of a buyout of all/part of ATHM will ever happen, but someday the market will realize that "open" access is a non-issue and that competition for @home will happen and @home will thrive anyway. The only question is how long it will take. It sadly might even take waiting until the exclusivity contracts expire in 2002-2004. I sure hope not. Rather I expect the market will start valuing ATHM again when they come to terms with some other major party for a co-branding deal. This despite the fact that @home doesnt really need anyone elses help. Nearer term we have two hopes to get back on track. The reversal of the Portland decision and the start of user installs. These two could get things charged again, but neither is scheduled for this year or even early next year. Eric