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To: Rich Investor who wrote (7148)	1/24/1999 3:53:00 AM
From: Denise D	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37507

Kris, What about you? What is your take on Paul's interview on STNN, and today's episode of CBC On-line, if you caught it? (Silly boy, don't you have anything better to do on a Saturday night?) P.S. Still needing help understanding how the Rogers/Yahoo! deal is affected by the pending At Home/Excite agreement, if you can provide any. Regards, Denise.

To: Rich Investor who wrote (7148)	1/24/1999 8:06:00 AM
From: Baddpitt	Respond to of 37507

zzzzz...

To: Rich Investor who wrote (7148)	1/24/1999 3:32:00 PM
From: Denise D	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37507

Today's Issue of the Money Section of the Calgary Herald: INTERNET SHARES OFFER POTENTIAL BUT BE CAREFUL Tony Johnson for the Calgary Herald The Internet holds enormous promise for commerce, science and entertainment and, because of this, investors are piling money into publicly traded companies that are active in the wired world. Increasingly, however, market watchers are warning of the peril of investing in high-flying Internet stocks. There's not a day that goes by that I don't hear of the coming apocalypse. I'm not here to defend the high valuations of Internet stocks like Amazon.com and Yahoo, which trade at outrageous multiples to their earnings and sales. And I'm not here to be a shameless booster of the Internet nuts who oversell the technology. I'll straddle the fence, thank you, in attempts to add a little perspective. The Internet holds incredible opportunity. I've watched its evolution from the early- to mid-1980s as a graduate student at university. Use then was limited almost exclusively to academia and government agencies. I was an early subscriber to America Online, but found it clunky and time consuming and dropped my subscription after a couple of years. I'm sorry to say I didn't participate in AOL's initial public offering of shares. The stock sits at around $150 today. The arrival of Netscape's Internet browser earlier this decade drew me back to the fold and opened up the World Wide Web -- a user-friendly window on the 'Net. There is rarely a day that goes by now that I don't surf the 'Net. Indeed, I now do some limited banking over the Internet and a little shopping. The technology assisted in selecting my last vehicle. My first purchase was a Netscape upgrade, which a few months later was being offered free to any takers. I prefer buying clothes or books in stores where I can feel and see the products. Where the Internet is taking us is anybody's guess. It's safe to say explosive growth will continue for several years because enormous capital investments and public attention will ensure the Internet becomes commercially viable. However, like the Industrial Revolution before us, not all participants will be successful. This gets my back to whether Internet stocks are good investments. Many doomsayers warning against investing in Internet issues quite likely have never used the Internet or don't understand the technology. It's too easy to say all of the stocks are overpriced. Some of these companies will look very, very cheap five and 10 years from now. The "blue-chips" of the group -- stocks like Yahoo, AOL and Excite -- may be the winners. Then, again, they may not. The successful companies will be those with strong good products and strong brand names, the same things that drive profits for firms like Gillette, Coke and McDonald's. Because the Internet is still a relatively new frontier, success in picking individual stocks will be extremely difficult. Other approaches could prove more rewarding. The first is to buy several of the more established Internet names and hold these for the next few years through the inevitable ups and downs. Yahoo, AOL and Amazon.com are a start. To this, add Cisco -- a networking company that builds the backbone for the Internet -- and At Home, a cable Internet provider. A similar approach is to consider a technology mutual fund. The Fidelity Focus Technology Fund or AIM Global Technology Fund are two strong candidates. They are far from a pure play on the Internet, which is likely a good thing. It's companies like Fidelity and AIM that are likely getting access to the Internet IPOs through the brokerage firms they trade through. Instead of holding large positions in the risky Internet stocks, they are just as apt to trade the issues aggressively to manage downside risk. Some mutual funds specializing in electronic commerce are now just appearing. Altamira had a successful launch of its e-Businesss fund late last year. Finally, you might want to forget the Internet content providers altogether and focus on the companies that are providing the building blocks or driving people to the 'Net. Companies like Cisco and Nortel on the networking side, or At Home and Canada's Shaw on the access side. Investing in the Internet is fraught with peril, but there are huge potential rewards that will continue to draw hordes of money to the sector. There are likely huge profits to come for investors who are selective and patient. (PHEW! Good thing I can type because I couldn't find it on the Calgary Herald website.) Regards, Denise.