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Technology Stocks : Autoweb IPO 3/22/99 AWEB -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: caly who wrote (73)	3/23/1999 1:44:00 PM
From: capitalistbeatnik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 696

IPO shares are not shortable yet.

To: caly who wrote (73)	3/23/1999 3:03:00 PM
From: Tod Skinner	Respond to of 696

From Briefing.com. Sounds like AWEB could be the next ebay in terms of new, compelling business model: AUTOWEB COM INC (AWEB) 27 1/2 +13 1/2. Autoweb.com is thef irst of two online automobile shopping and consumer information sites scheduled to come public this week. After pricing at $14 per share, the stock opened at 21 5/8 and reached an intraday high of 29 1/2.... The company derives the majority of its revenue from payments made by auto dealers for consumer inquiries provided by AWEB. After the consumer specifies the type of automobile desired via the Autoweb.com site, dealers have 24 hours to respond with their best offers. The company has experienced an extremely high turnover rate (60% in 1998), as many member dealers have been disappointed by the number of sales leads delivered by AWEB and/or low conversion rates. In an attempt to address this problem, AWEB recently changed its pricing model and began selling services to new dealers using a "pay for performance" model instead of a subscription-based pricing model. Financials: For fiscal year 1998, AWEB reported a loss of $11.48 million or $1.58, compared to a year-ago loss of $2.9 million or $0.41 a share. Revenue rose 273% to $13.04 million. Gross margin was an extremely robust 93.5%.... With 23.46 million shares outstanding, AWEB carries a market cap of $645 million and sports a price/sales ratio of 49.47... The company competes with Autobytel.com and Microsoft's CarPoint. Autobytel.com is scheduled to price its initial public offering later this week and will trade under the symbol "ABTL." With a highly-scalable model, healthy margins and no inventory exposure, AWEB has an excellent chance of becoming a darling of Internet analysts.