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

To: zebraspot who wrote (9791)	7/9/1998 10:15:00 PM
From: PblcSrvnt	Respond to of 164684

How do you do it, Zebra? I've never possessed such talent, though I do seem to have the uncanny ability to make stocks move in large ways with the simple push of the return key on my keyboard. Damn these here computers are spektakalir ma cheenes. I hope to have a similar impact upon the real estate market as soon as Etrade begins selling residential housing. I'll e-mail you before I purchase. I would consider it a reasonable request and a darn good hedge if you would be willing to send me a 10%(of equity)insurance fee for the forewarning. Lee P.S. Things to Ponder: If a deaf person swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap? If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation? Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice?" Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food? When sign makers go on strike, is anything written on their signs? Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?" Would a fly without wings be called a walk? Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them? Why don't sheep shrink when it rains? Can vegetarians eat animal crackers? Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections? Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: zebraspot who wrote (9791)	7/10/1998 5:57:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

from USA Today usatoday.com Y Net stocks frenzy recalls past binges NEW YORK ¢ Pick a stock with a ''.com'' in its name and you'll probably make a mint overnight. See also: ‹Yahoo! beats Wall Street expectations So certain is Wall Street of all things Internet that leading stocks remain 300% to 600% higher over the last year despite a two-day sell-off. Yahoo's $186 3/16 close Wednesday was 10% below its $207 1/2 record set Tuesday. But it is still up 600% over the past 52 weeks. Amazon.com, down 25% from its high early Tuesday, has gained 678% over the year. Even non-Internet companies such as disco-king K-Tel and fish-oil producer Zapata surged on mere mention of plans to join the fracas. ''The level of speculation is much higher now than anytime I can recall,'' First Albany strategist Hugh Johnson says. ''It's a very troubling sign.'' Yet no matter how many veterans warn about companies that don't produce earnings, six-fold returns are difficult to resist. And why not forgo long- term investing and dig for gold? That type of attitude is nothing new on Wall Street, where many spectacular booms followed by equally awe-inspiring busts have claimed victims over the years. Consider: ‹Synergen and SyStemic led a speculative biotech binge in the early 1990s on hopes for drugs that would cure cancer and other diseases. The rally fizzled when drugs that worked on mice didn't work on humans. Arguments that profits could take a back seat in an emerging sector fell flat. ‹Personal computer stocks grew at a torrid pace in the 1980s as Wall Street bet PCs would revolutionize the world. Many companies did prosper, but highfliers such as Eagle Computer ¢ whose CEO was killed driving his red Ferrari just hours after a 1983 initial public offering ¢ sank into obscurity. Commodore International ¢ considered to be the Dell Computer of its day ¢ went belly-up by 1995. Commodore shares had risen from $2 in 1979 to $113 by 1983. ‹In the 1920s, electric utilities took off as the nation became wired. Goldman Sachs and others created investment funds devoted to the stocks. The cautious few looked foolish. But when the market crashed in 1929, investors-turned- speculators found that only a few of the utilities would survive. Fred Hickey, editor of The High-Tech Strategist, worries about the implication for the stock market now. Internet stocks ''are a symptom of the disease'' of believing that earnings don't matter, he says. Commodore at one point made lots of money and its valuation was relatively low. Not so with Amazon.com. It would have to turn an estimated $38.6 million 1999 loss into a $236.9 million profit just to match the typical hot stock's valuation. But even if doom and gloom is in the future, a good game is hard to abandon. James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, says investors made the same mistake in the 1980s in Japan. Stocks rose without regard to fundamentals. The end was brutal. ''These binges are as much about adrenalin as brain cells,'' he says. ''These are not securities. They are gambling markers, delusions with stock symbols.'' Professor Dick Sylla at New York University says that the Internet will make millionaires. But not everyone can win. Similar to when railroads were first built or when John D. Rockefeller was still figuring out what to do with oil, new technology does more for people than for stocks. ''People expect booms to last forever and they never do,'' he adds. Then again, you could just tack a ''.com'' to your name and sell shares. By David Rynecki, USA TOD