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

To: J.S. who wrote (7797)	6/26/1998 4:56:00 PM
From: William T. Katz	Respond to of 164684

Article about e-commerce/internet stocks: investor.msn.com The most interesting thing was the following Q&A: "Do the meteoric levels of Internet stocks concern you? Absolutely. When I compare stock valuations within the sector, I often see stocks trading at similar valuation ranges but the stocks have radically different fundamental business characteristics. So when I see stocks blindly trading at high prices and earnings multiples regardless of their underlying gross margins, that's a red flag that people are getting over-excited about a particular stock." Does this sound like anything we know?

To: J.S. who wrote (7797)	6/26/1998 5:01:00 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 164684

Speaking of options, how are they pricing these damn things at CBOE? I buy some July 90 puts for 7 7/8 when the stock was at 97. The stock closes at 94 1/4 and the ask price goes DOWN to 7 3/4? cboe.pcquote.com I was expecting to see it above 8!

To: J.S. who wrote (7797)	6/28/1998 7:56:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Despite Market Rumors, Web Message Boards Ignore Banks By Johanna Bennett NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--While Wall Street remains abuzz with rumors of a buyer emerging for Mellon Bank Corp. (MEL), Internet message boards - normally bastions for speculation and rumors - remain largely silent. It isn't that investors using the message boards, also called threads, are unaware of the current swirl of rumors. Actually, it is all they talk about in the few dozen messages posted over the last few days. They just don't care as much about banking stocks as they do, say, about technology stocks. Message boards for companies such as Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) tend to draw a seemingly never-ending litany of postings - sometimes hundreds in one day. But despite the ongoing merger mania in the financial-services sector, banking stocks have nowhere near the same following on the Internet. "On a relative basis, there is definitely a lot less interest," said Mike Riley, producer of Yahoo! Finance, a popular message board site for investors. Experts say that since investors using the Internet tend to be rather tech-savvy, they generally focus much of their attention on technology stocks. At the same time, sectors considered "hot" and "sexy," or in simple terms, volatile, also attract more interest. So while one of the two message boards on Silicon Investor for Mellon Bank remains unused since October, Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN) thread attracts hundreds of users. "Everyone seems to care about Microsoft and Apple," said "SI Admin," an investor and site administrator on Silicon Investor. "Those companies are so visible. Banking? Personally it leaves me cold. I would suspect it does for a lot of people." That isn't to say that big news in the often staid banking sector won't boost audience participation. Rumors foretelling of a buyer for Mellon Bank have been flowing for months, ever since the most recent run of bank consolidations reshaped the industry. And last month's failed effort at a hostile takeover by Bank of New York Co. (BK) gave some the impression a buyout was inevitable. Rumors of a buyer reemerged this week - pairing Mellon with Chase Manhattan Corp. (CMB), Fleet Financial Group Inc. (FLT) and First Union Corp. (FTU) - heightened option activity and upped the stock's price more than $6 a share. Recently, the shares were down 2 13/16, or 3.8%, at 72. Since then, message board pundits on Yahoo! Finance, Silicon Investor and the Motley Fool have posted about 300 messages on threads for Mellon Bank. About half of those messages were published on Yahoo! Finance. But over the same period of time, Microsoft and Amazon.com, both surfing a wave of recent news coverage, each tallied about 1,500 messages on their respective Yahoo! Finance threads. "When a stock moves, people want to talk about it ... you don't always see that kind of volatility in some stocks," Riley said. -Johanna Bennett; 201-938-5670