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Strategies & Market Trends : Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (3)	6/29/2001 6:38:26 PM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5

dailynews.yahoo.com Friday June 29 5:09 PM ET Former Internet Bulls See Upside in Battered Sector NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two high profile analysts who have fallen from grace along with the entire Internet sector said this week they saw signs of some upside. In a research note Friday, Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget said the industry is approaching the end of a brutal shakeout phase as several Internet stocks have performed well of late. The note from Blodget, who made his name with a $400 price target call on Amazon.com (NasdaqNM:AMZN - news) back when the sector was sizzling and who now has taken a beating from investors and media as the dot-com sector has unraveled in the last year, came a day after fellow analyst Mary Meeker, Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, voiced cautiously optimistic comments on Yahoo! (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news). Blodget and Meeker gained their fame and were widely profiled during the dot-com frenzy as cheerleaders of the Internet economy and have since been under scrutiny as many of the companies they covered have come upon hard times. Sector valuations are not ``cheap'' but are more reasonable than in the past, even as fundamentals in other technology sectors continue to deteriorate, Blodget said in a research note. He said that he expects several Internet companies to beat consensus estimates for the quarter. ``We expect eBay Inc.(NasdaqNM:EBAY - news), Homestore.com Inc. (NasdaqNM:HOMS - news), GoTo.com Inc. (NasdaqNM:GOTO - news) and Priceline.com Inc. (NasdaqNM:PCLN - news) to beat the consensus and expect 2001 and 2002 consensus estimates to increase after the quarter for all four companies,'' he said in the note. However, he added that this has been factored into the stock prices already -- with the exception perhaps of name-your-own Internet company Priceline. Shares of Priceline.com rose nearly 11 percent, or 87 cents at $8.95, while shares of GoTo.com shot up nearly 15 percent, or $2.54 to $19.50. Shares of Homestore.com rose 49 cents to $34.90 and shares of eBay were off 3 percent, or $2.11, at $67.85 in late trade. Merrill expects Amazon's second-quarter earnings to beat consensus estimates and revenue to come in within the range of estimates. The investment firm said 2002 earnings estimates could also be raised. Such a performance by Amazon is not yet factored into its stock price, Blodget said. Merrill also expects that AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) will likely meet consensus and reaffirm targets, but Blodget said that occasionally he is hearing concerns about a miss -- leaving upside room in the company's stock if it delivers a solid quarter. It is possible, but not probable, that Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) may come in slightly below revenue consensus estimates, he added. Merrill said there is some risk that Inktomi Corp.(NasdaqNM:INKT - news) and RealNetworks Inc. (NasdaqNM:RNWK - news) may miss their consensus revenue estimates. On Thursday, Meeker said shares of Yahoo appear to have some upside if it executes to her financial projections and overcomes challenges, such as competition from AOL Time Warner and Microsoft and reducing its dependence on online advertising. ``These are tough days for Yahoo and the challenges are significant,'' Meeker said. ``That said, we recommend that risk-oriented investors test the waters with Yahoo shares.'' KJC