Chris Nerney

Investors who bought shares of Network-1 Security Solutions when the maker of Internet firewall software went public on Nov. 12, 1998, had little to cheer about during the stock’s first year of trading. Actually, I’m being kind. They had absolutely nothing to cheer about. Shares of NSSI (NSSI) were offered at $6, opened at 6-3/4 […]

It’s bad enough when a company’s stock is punished because reported earnings fail to meet the “consensus estimates” (read: guesses) of analysts. But when a stock takes a hit because it falls short of unofficial “whisper numbers”… well, then we’ve entered into the realm of ridiculous. Consider the latest victim of the street’s perpetual whisper […]

It can fairly be argued that, if not for pornography, the Internet as we know it today would not exist. Back in the mid-’90s, when America Online Inc. (AOL) was blanketing the country with starter disks and Webcrawler was the de facto search engine of choice, thousands of people – overwhelmingly male – were logging […]

So much for America Online Inc.’s broadband problems. The Internet access and content giant’s blockbuster merger with media and entertainment conglomerate Time Warner (TWX) eliminates what many have called AOL’s Achilles heel – its inability to offer high-speed ‘Net access to its 20 million subscribers. AOL’s (AOL) broadband efforts to date have focused on the […]

For the past couple of years Amazon.com (AMZN) Chief Exexcutive Officer Jeff Bezos has told anybody who would listen that the company’s ambitious expansion strategy requires it to invest now and think about profits later. Of course, that’s also his message to investors: Buy shares of the fast-growing but bleeding e-tail king now, and you […]

For the first time in months, a majority of stocks listed in internet.com’s IPODEX — which tracks recent aftermarket performance of Internet public offerings — are trading below their respective first-day closing prices. Through Tuesday’s trading, 26 of the 48 Internet stocks that launched IPOs in November and December were worth less than they were […]

For Internet content companies targeting a market niche, there are two basic success strategies: 1) Identify a niche and then dominate it, and 2) Create your own niche, or at least make it look like you did. Snowball.com, which filed late last month to go public, is opting for Plan B. The company’s Web site […]

Looking back at 1999, you can only marvel at the explosion of investor interest in Internet stocks and IPOs. The market supported an astonishing number of Internet plays, showing signs of strain only in the summer, when glut of new ‘Net tickers flooded the street in the weeks after a strong spring correction. Which is […]

Since this is the season of lists, it seems appropriate that the last StockTracker Daily of the week/ month/ year/ decade/ century/ millennium (yes, I know this really isn’t the end of the millennium; I’m just swept up in the hype!) features some lists of Internet stocks. Percentages are based on trading through Wednesday. In […]

On Tuesday I wrote a column about e-tailers and how the market no longer views increased traffic as a sure sign of a Web site’s success. (E-tailers Get Post-Holiday Blues) A new study from Forrester Research suggests that there is growing demand for detailed information about the behavior of consumers on a Web site, rather […]

As far as investors are concerned, the bottom line on the success of this year’s online shopping season won’t be determined until they start seeing some bottom lines from e-tailers next month. Despite record traffic levels — and perhaps because of record traffic levels — a skeptical market is ignoring the hype about a breakthrough […]

Like a former beauty queen who hasn’t yet been asked to the prom, iVillage (IVIL) and its early investors still hope for an invitation to join the latest Internet stocks run-up. But the women’s Web site network, which set investors’ hearts afire with a dazzling IPO earlier this year, continues to wait by the phone. […]