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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yard_man who wrote (7470)	6/24/1998 6:13:00 PM
From: tonyt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

WSJ: Analysts' Warnings Are Lost As Tech Shares Shoot Higher An INTERACTIVE JOURNAL News Roundup Technology stocks kept climbing Wednesday, even as analysts warned investors not to get too excited about high-tech's latest sustained run. The sector had a dismal May, followed by a rash of earnings warnings this month. Experts said the typical "summer slump" concerns were aired out early, causing a collective sigh of relief now that much of the bad news is already out there. "The outlook is getting better, but I would not be too aggressive to dive on board," said James Townsend, chairman and chief portfolio manager at SoundView Financial Group. "It's always tempting when there's a big move to assume things are going to the moon from here, but I don't think that's likely to occur." While tech stocks may not reach the moon, near-Earth orbit seemed like a definite possibility once again Wednesday. The Nasdaq Composite Index showed great strength once again, rising 28.70 to 1873.30, while Morgan Stanley's high-tech 35 index climbed 9.10 to 594.10. Internet-related shares continued their sprint, shaking off early losses endured during a brief spate of profit-taking, as speculation remained rampant that many companies in the group could be takeover targets for large media firms. Shares of Yahoo! were up 2 11/16 at 150 3/4 on the Nasdaq Stock Market -- the stock closed at 129 1/4 on Friday and at 113 13/16 a week before that. America Online's shares were up 1 at 107 1/4 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock closed at 96 3/8 on Friday and at 87 1/8 a week before that. Shares of Excite slipped 1 1/4 to 81 1/2 on Nasdaq. But the stock closed at 73 5/8 on Friday and at 65 3/8 a week before that. Amazon.com shot up another 5 1/2 to 98 3/16 on Nasdaq, continuing a stellar performance. The stock jumped 7% Monday and another 13.9% Tuesday. "Once the retail crowd is worked up on a particular story, they carry it to extremes," said Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co. analyst Ulric Weil. "They are very emotional." He added that on-line chatter about these stocks in Internet chat rooms has only added fuel to the fire, as have thin floats among many Internet stocks and short-covering. And, of course, there's the daily speculation over who in the group will become the next target for a traditional media company. General Electric's NBC network and Walt Disney electrified the sector recently with decisions to invest in companies -- CNET and Infoseek, respectively -- that are building up Web-gateway sites known as portals. Those decisions have left investors gossiping about who will be next to tie the knot. Many on Wall Street believe Lycos Inc., now one of the cheaper independent portals around, could be the next to be bought by a big company like Time Warner or News Corp. Despite the Internet sector's current glow of good health, analysts said they expect choppy trading through much of the summer -- and not just because it's typically a sluggish time for the group. There's still the reporting season coming up in July, and the news isn't likely to be rosy -- even for some companies that didn't deflate expectations. "One of the things I've heard [explaining this week's runup] is that the preannouncement season is over," said Roger McNamee, a partner at Integral Capital Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. "That may be true, but the announcement season is about to begin, and I don't expect a lot of good news coming out of this." For Mr. McNamee, this week's run is "a knee-jerk reaction to an oversold environment."