Steve Harmon

Just when it looked like Internet stocks would wilt from the summer heat Wall Street turns on the summer of love. Said another way, if Bob Dylan sang this one it’d be “knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door,” as ISDEX, Internet Stock Index, climbed a phenomenal 18% since June 16. We count the price-weighted ISDEX […]

Nothing puts fear and loathing in Las Vegas or Wall Street like the mention of tax. The stocks of Internet commerce companies especially, including Amazon.com, Onsale, Egghead.com, CDnow and N2K are vulnerable to possible backlash if the U.S. or any other government starts applying taxation to transactions. Meanwhile, Internet service providers could be hurting if […]

“Could you tell me what your opinion is about Check Point stock (CHKPF) and it’s future? Check Point has been a firewall market leader for the longest time with stock price as high as 50 1/2. However, recently its stock has been in a slump for no apparent reason.” Reply: We believe that the security […]

Willing risk-takers Yet big media companies are willing to face these risks for the opportunity to dominate the world of new media. “The Internet for Disney is mission critical,” says Jake Winebaum, chairman of Disney’s Buena Vista Internet Group. “It is at the core of a lot of our strategies.” For example, families planning vacations […]

Up to now, the Internet has been a frustrating place for traditional media giants. Their Web sites struggled to crack the top 10, which was dominated by Yahoo, Netscape, AOL and Microsoft. So now some are resorting to an old-fashioned strategy. If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em. “This is kind of like 1950s television” […]

The question front and center on Disney’s foray into the Web portal business with its $400-plus million deal to acquire 43% of Infoseek is exactly what did Disney pay anyway? Our analysis shows an effective $15.27 per share. The problem with looking at the deal in this fashion–which many on Wall Street are sure to […]

The real losers in Disney’s estimated $420 million deal to acquire 43% of Infoseek (NASDAQ:SEEK) this week are Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Excite (NASDAQ:XCIT)–both are left with a smaller partner pool in the big media space. Yesterday Disney acquired 25.8 million shares of Infoseek while Disney gets a note for $139 million with warrants that allow […]

Mickey Mouse’s handlers consider taking a rumored 10% stake in Infoseek (NASDAQ:SEEK), the ‘Peacock Network’ (NBC) effectively buys control of CNET’s Snap portal, and suddenly the navigation stocks once again thrive on the belief that old-line media firms may buy newfangled Internet powerhouses, pushing Top 10 per user value to $91 on average. Mecklermedia’s WebSite […]

Bookworms and infomaniacs jumped on Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Infoseek’s (NASDAQ:SEEK) bandwagon driving up the shares in a stock market as absurd as Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer wrestling Howard Stern on pay per view. One minute stocks are up, the next they’re down. Adding another element to the action, caffeine-inspired thumb-twitching traders and fast-buck artists […]

THE INTERNET STOCK INDEX 16-Jun-98 point change % change ISDEX 133.36 3.75 2.89% ISDEX Price Wtd. 1,431.63 50.50 3.66% NASDAQ 1,753.12 37.37 2.18% DJIA 8,665.29 37.36 0.43% Software.net’s planned initial public offering inspires Wall Street to look at the hammered Egghead.com (NASDAQ:EGGS), which gains 10% today to $8.25 per share. Egghead has some smart deals […]

Forget the “Field of Dreams” slogan, GeoCities taps into the id, superego, and ego with the formula for success, paraphrasing the movie’s slogan to read “If they build it, they will come.” Plain old-fashioned vanity meets another sure winner–give it away free–driving GeoCities to become one of the largest Web sites on the Internet, and […]

Websteader GeoCities filed its first papers for an initial public offering with a goal of raising $72.45 million. Shares outstanding and share price are not yet indicated although we estimate GeoCities could be valued in the $375 million range, though not on current revenue but its user base and brand strength. Latest quarter revenues hit […]