Net Stocks On deck : Amazon "flirted" with 52-week high ( and got bopped when it did !)
By Bambi Francisco, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 4:09 PM ET Oct. 15, 2002
cbs.marketwatch.com.
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas -- or, better yet, a third-quarter-reporting-season rally.
Amazon.com, which is in its strongest quarter of the year, saw shares move above $20 per share early Tuesday to close in on the 52-week high of $20.40 struck back in May.
Investors are anticipating that the e-tailer will beat third-quarter estimates when it reports results on Oct. 24.
By the close of trading, however, Amazon.com (AMZN: news, chart, profile) lost 1 percent to $18.94.
Apparently, investors started to heed the cautious words of Derek Brown, an analyst at W.R. Hambrecht, who issued an overvaluation alert Tuesday morning. Earlier, his call - he lowered Amazon from "buy" to "hold" - fell on deaf ears as the stock raced higher.
Amazon.com is expected to post quarterly sales of $806.78 million, a rise of 26 percent. Amazon is expected to narrow its losses to 4 cents per share from a loss of 16 cents per share last year.
But even if Amazon.com grows sales above $814.8 million, which is estimated by Brown, Amazon.com is still overvalued in Brown's eyes.
Keeping the momentum going for anything e-tail, Bizrate said that e-commerce over the holiday season is expected to grow 24 percent. SoundView Technology Group expects e-commerce to grow between 20 and 25 percent. Comscore and Yahoo/AC Nielsen project holiday e-commerce sales gains of 27 percent and 23 percent, respectively.
Bizrate said the leading online categories over the holidays should be books, apparel, DVDs, and video and digital cameras. CNet (CNET: news, chart, profile), the online media company that's a comprehensive resource for information on technology gadgets, saw shares jump 12 percent to $1.18.
CNet is expected to widen its quarterly losses to 19 cents per share from a loss of 16 cents last year. Quarterly sales are expected to drop 17 percent to $57.32 million. CNet is set to report third-quarter results Thursday.
On deck
DoubleClick (DCLK: news, chart, profile), which provides online marketing services and products for Web publishers and advertisers, ran up 1 percent to $6.05 by the close. Shares traded as high as $6.57 earlier.
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The company is slatet to report its third-quarter results Tuesday after the close. Analysts expect DoubleClick to earn 1 cent per share. It lost 9 cents last year. Quarterly sales are expected to decline 24 percent to $70.57 from $92.69.
EBay (EBAY: news, chart, profile), which completed its acquisition of PayPal in early October, saw shares inch up to $58.01, after rising Monday and Friday.
EBay is expected to be one of the few Internet companies to post strong year-over-year sales growth. EBay's quarterly sales, in the three months ending with September, are expected to have grown 45 percent to $282.41 million (excluding PayPal results) from $194 million last year. EBay is expected to report a profit of 20 cents in the third quarter when it releases results after the close Thursday. The per-share forecast is an improvement from the 12 cents reported last year.
Overture (OVER: news, chart, profile) traded as high as $30.29 in the early going. The stock closed at $29.82, up 6 percent.
Published forecasts have Overture's revenue growing 133 percent to $169.31 million from $72.52 million. But it may be even better than that. Yahoo's strong results revealed that paid listings provided by Overture were driving the media company's online advertising revenue better than expected. Overture is expected to report third-quarter results Oct. 22, after the close of trading. Analysts expect Overture profits to grow to 21 cents per share in the third quarter, from 16 cents in the year-ago period.
Hotels.com (ROOM: news, chart, profile), which buys hotel rooms in bulk and sells them through a distribution network of 29,000 affiliates, is set to report third-quarter results Oct. 23, before the market opens. Hotels.com is expected to extend its track record of beating expectations ever since it went public in February 2000. Analysts expect Hotels.com to post earnings per share of 42 cents from 27 cents, and revenue to grow 67 percent to $252.33 million from $151.24 million. Hotels.com ran up 6 percent to $55.17. |
