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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (81209)11/18/1998 9:29:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette  Respond to of 176387
 
<K-Tel> Are you an Inter-NUT? Well you have been warned,not you Michelle.

Since you showed some interest in the subject here is bit more detail about K-Tel and the NUT mania. BTW did I mention DELL is the real thing, real Internet stock that is.
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Courtesy:Foxwire.

K-Tel Falls Off the Internet-Stock Wave

11.36 a.m. ET (1636 GMT) November 18, 1998 By Eric R. Quinones
NEW YORK — K-Tel International, which made its name living off the past, is finding that excitement over the Internet's future can't hide the music company's troubled present.

K-Tel gained stock-market cachet this year simply by announcing it would pitch its Bee Gees-era disco compilations and other goods online. But its stock has plunged 39 percent over two days as investors were reminded that the Internet is not yet a profitable business for most companies, despite waves of frenzied buying in response to seemingly any mention of the Web.

K-Tel revealed Tuesday that the Nasdaq Stock Market has warned the money-losing record seller it lacks the required assets to remain listed. K-Tel stock will continue trading as the company appeals for an extension from Nasdaq and tries to raise more capital, a process that could take several weeks.

The warning served as a wake-up call to Internet-hungry investors. K-Tel shares were down $1.25, or 10 percent, at $10.75 this morning, adding to a drop of $5.62 1/2 on Tuesday.

"At some point they look at value. Perhaps with K-Tel it's the first good look at what the reality might be," said A.C. Moore, chief investment strategist for Dunvegan Associates in Santa Barbara, Calif.


K-Tel said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that if it is removed from trading on Nasdaq's main exchange, it may move to a less prominent market run by Nasdaq for smaller companies.

Nasdaq requires listed companies to have net assets of $4 million. K-Tel, based in Calabasas, Calif., has net assets of about $1 million, according to its filing.

K-Tel lost $3.1 million in its fiscal first quarter that ended Sept. 30, reversing profits of $1.2 million a year ago, as sales dropped 25 percent to $18.8 million.

In its last full fiscal year, K-Tel lost $2.4 million, compared to profits of $3.2 million a year earlier, although sales did rise 13 percent to $85.6 million.

Despite its losses, however, the company famed for hawking repackaged musical hits on TV has been an on-again, off-again Wall Street darling based on its name recognition and Internet optimism.

The first wave of K-Tel frenzy came in April and May, when its stock jumped from about $4 to $40 after the company said it would begin selling its products online and then acquired the Internet publishing rights to Billboard magazine's weekly music and video best-seller charts.

After dropping to $5.62 1/2 by Oct. 9, K-Tel shares leaped again this month after the company agreed to create a store on Playboy's Web site and to feature its K-Tel Express site on the Microsoft Network. The stock was as high as $39.12 1/2 on Nov. 11.

K-Tel has not been alone in the dizzying love-hate relationship investors have formed with the Internet. Stocks of established online companies — including America Online Inc., Netscape Communications Corp. and Yahoo Inc. — have seesawed as lesser-known players such as Market Guide Inc. and Track Data Corp. became just brief shining stars.

And the mood shows no signs of changing. In just the past week, stock in AvTel Communications Inc. soared from $2.37 1/2 to $31 after the company announced it would launch of a high-speed Internet connection in California. But the shares tanked after AvTel said it was not planning a nationwide launch of the service, dropping an additional 25 percent Tuesday.

Moore said the wild ride of Internet stocks currently makes them impossible to value.

"I'm not suggesting there's nothing to them. It's a gigantic change in this time where we're all going to be viewing things and buying things differently," he said. "But, at the same time, there are a lot of interlopers and there are a lot of pretenders that are on the coattails of this great Internet change."