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Technology Stocks : INFOSEEK (GO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TLindt who wrote (2407)	2/14/1998 9:47:00 PM
From: chirodoc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9343

<<<<<This SEEK movie might play all summer long. I'm still eyeing XCIT for a re-entry between 36-39. ...you could be right. i think that if you want to get into excite at those levels, pray for a war with saddam, clinton being skewered by the press, and indonesian food riots getting worse. otherwise i think you may need to accept low 40's--mid to high 30's and i will join you and jump in.

To: TLindt who wrote (2407)	2/15/1998 10:31:00 AM
From: chirodoc	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9343

THIS WAS IN THESTREET.COM AND MAY PROVIDE TEMPORARY DOWNWARD PRESSURE Good Morning Silicon Valley Posted at 7:34 p.m. PST Tuesday, February 10, 1998 Red flags flapping over Infoseek's stock offering Feb. 11, 1998 BY ADAM LASHINSKY Mercury News Staff Writer INFOSEEK CORP. (Nasdaq, SEEK) wants more of the public's money, and that takes chutzpah considering it hasn't made any for the investors so far. But then in entrepreneurial Silicon Valley -- where land, people and time are scarce -- moxie's not in short supply. Infoseek's nerve comes in the form of its efforts to raise more than $30 million in a follow-on stock offering expected Thursday. Never mind that the Sunnyvale search-engine company's stock, first offered to the public at $12 in June 1996, has moved mostly sideways since. After falling as low as $4.50 a year later, it closed Tuesday at $12.13, up 47 cents, or 4 percent. Wall Street clearly wants to give Infoseek the benefit of the doubt, but the company is dangerously close to being an also-ran in a young industry. Anyone considering the new stock offering should read the prospectus -- a document that by law stresses risks over opportunities -- very carefully. For example, the company has relied heavily in the past on getting Internet ''traffic'' from users of Netscape Communications Corp.'s (Nasdaq, NSCP) browser. In December 1996, 44 percent of Infoseek's traffic was coming from Netscape. In 12 months, that figure had shrunk to 27 percent. Given Netscape's problems, it's doesn't take rocket science to figure which way the percentage will move. Infoseek's revenues are increasing rapidly, from just $1 million in 1995 to $15.1 million in 1996 and $34.6 million last year. But it's fallen further and further behind in marketshare to industry leader Yahoo Inc., (Nasdaq, YHOO), whose stock has soared as Infoseek's has stagnated. ''It's such a tough call as to what the No. 4 or No. 5 in that space will be worth one day,'' says Brian Oakes, who follows media and Internet companies for Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York. ''In the media business, the top two or three win, but No. 1 wins the most, and there's a dramatic drop-off after that.'' Bruce D. Smith, an analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York, has focused more on Infoseek's low valuation relative to its peers. He recommended buying the stock in December when it traded for $8. Merrill Lynch and BT Alex. Brown are underwriting the stock offering. Company officials were on a ''roadshow'' pitching institutional investors on the stock and weren't available. That leaves the prospectus, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, for investors to get information. And there's plenty of red flags. Infoseek has no disaster-recovery plan if a flood or earthquake were to strike its computer systems. That's not uncommon for a young company, but hardly comforting. It also plans to spend heavily on information systems. Proceeds from the sale of 3 million shares -- all being sold by the company, not executives or deep-pocket backers -- will go mostly to boost working capital.