Chris Nerney

It’s been a long time since shareholders of audio content Web site audiohighway.com (AHWY) have felt like part of the Internet stocks bull run. Besides an ever-so-brief spike last April that took shares as high as 38 5/8 — a healthy 428 percent above the company’s December 1998 IPO first-day closing price — AHWY has […]

Internet investors are a reactive sort, which is one of the reasons why Net stocks can so easily soar or swoon in response to the latest news flash or offhand utterance by market movers such as Fed head Alan Greenspan or Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget. The reality, however, is that most of what passes […]

Even Linux is not immune from the gravitational pull of the recent slump gripping Internet stocks. Linux software vendor Caldera Systems (CALD) made its ticker debut late Tuesday morning at $26 per share, or 86 percent above the $14 offer price for 5 million shares. By early afternoon, shares had dipped to 24 7/8. Of […]

Who knows what to make of the rumors that online broker E*Trade Group is actively seeking a merger with a financial institution, with names like American Express and Goldman Sachs being kicked around. The buzz about a possible merger arose in the days before E*Trade announced last Monday plans to purchase the 8,500-machine ATM network […]

Even with powerful IPO accelerants like Linux and a last-minute offer price hike, Internet appliance service provider Netpliance is destined for a modest flight in its ticker debut. Shares of Netpliance (NPLI) began trading shortly before noon Friday at 24-3/4, only 37.5 percent above the $18 per share offer price set on Thursday, before dropping […]

Maybe shareholders of online grocer Peapod should take comfort in the recent ticker performance of video streaming software maker Digital Lava, another company whose stock was downtrodden for most of the past year. Of course, it would be false comfort, since Peapod (PPOD) has virtually no chance of surviving in the face of continued low […]

ImproveNet.com hopes to construct a reputation as the premiere online provider of home improvement information and services. But to do so, the company must continue to spend millions on brand-building, hence its pending initial public offering of 2.3 million shares of common stock designed to raise $34.5 million. (The current price range for shares, which […]

With a clean, easily understandable business model, a number of powerful industry allies and some strong street buzz, it’s no surprise that online auction services outsourcer FairMarket (FAIM) zoomed off the IPO launching pad on Tuesday. Shares of FairMarket opened at $47, or 176 percent above the $17 offer price set for the 5 million […]

It’s not hard to determine whether the steep plunge in i2 Technologies’ (ITWO) stock in early trading Monday is due more to the huge selloff that drenched the Nasdaq in red or to the reaction of investors concerned the company had paid too much to buy Aspect Development (ASDV) for $9.3 billion in stock. While […]

It would be absolutely unreasonable for anybody to expect Internet stocks to repeat last year’s record performance, much of which was built on a torrid run-up that started in late 1998 and peaked last spring. Indeed, investment experts have warned that last year’s gains in ‘Net shares were unprecedented and not likely to be seen […]

It’s a sector desperate for good news, or at least news that will be interpreted positively by Wall Street. Now e-tailers and their investors are hoping that Pets.com’s (IPET) recent surge after picking up a “buy” rating from Merrill Lynch and other investment banks signals a turnaround for many stocks in the sector. Pets.com had […]

Hey, if Internet IPOs are hot, then an IPO from a company called IPOConnection that wants to sell IPOs over the Internet should really be hot! At least that’s the premise behind a planned offering of 1.1 million shares from the St. Louis-based company, which on Tuesday filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to […]