Hi Gus, I am a recent shareholder of Net Perceptions (NETP). What do you think? It owns a very
promising technology which has already taken the lead position in its industry.
I hate to see it “drowning.” Tell me your opinion.
Greg
Reply: Net Perceptions is one of the early leaders in the emerging field
of relationship marketing. However, it is now sharing the public stage with
competitor Engage Technologies (ENGA) which went public recently. While the two
companies have different technologies, both aim to tailor Web site content and
recommendations to users based on profiles in order to increase sales and
customer satisfaction. Engage seems to be growing more rapidly than Net
Perceptions but not necessarily enough to justify the difference in price. With
Engage’s market cap at $1.5B and Net Perceptions’ market cap at $321M, Net
Perceptions does seem under-valued.
Net Perceptions just reported strong growth with sales growing from $1.9M to
$2.8M from the first to second quarter. Engage, being a newly public company,
has not yet reported quarterly results but it had revenue of $8.9M for the nine
months ending April 30 and $2.2M for the 12 months ending December 1998,
leading to expectations that revenues are growing very rapidly.
However, Engage is building a more diverse revenue stream which goes beyond
software for relationship management in e-commerce. Engage has also developed
an enormous database of more than 30 million consumer profiles and runs both an
ad software management system and Web site analysis business, i/PRO. You might
want to spread your risk over both companies in order to benefit from the
expected growth in relationship marketing.
Upgrade, Smart Play?
Dear Gus, what’s your opinion on UPGRADE (UPGD)? Also, isn’t a rate hike also
good for Internet values and shouldn’t they in contrast to all cyclicals lose
less?
Bernhard Regensburger
Reply: Internet Stock Report doesn’t closely follow Upgrade
International Corp. because it is not a pure Internet play. Like many
technology companies, Upgrade has some technology that could gain enormous
market share from growth in e-commerce but it is far from certain that the
companies’ smart card products will benefit from growing digital commerce.
Smart cards have been tested for more than ten years with only the most modest
success. The strong sales growth of sites like Amazon.com and eBay in
conducting e-commerce using typed-in credit card numbers is not an encouraging
sign for smart cards in our view.
Interest rate hikes hurt Internet stocks in the short term because it changes
the risk-reward equation for short term profits. Looking at the long term view,
interest rate hikes will be beneficial if they achieve the goal of staving off
inflation.
Researching Revenue
Where can I find up-to-date revenue information for Internet companies?
Tiffany Thomas
Reply: If its a public company, you can read the quarterly reports
which must be filed with the U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).
These reports, known as Form 10-Q, report detailed information on sales, as
well as expenses. For a look at an entire year, you’ll want to read the 10-K
which is the annual statement.
The SEC makes the documents available to the public at its Web site, www.sec.gov in what’s known as the EDGAR database (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system).
Most financial Web sites provide copies of these documents or links to the
filings at the Edgar Web site.
Our recommendation for finding the reports is Wall
Street Research Net, the newest Web site in the internet.com network (like
the famous electric razor tycoon, we liked it so much we bought the company).
To begin your search at WSRN, enter the ticker symbol of the company you want
to research from the home page. The page that displays will have a link to the
SEC filings right at the top of the results page, along with links to dozens of
other reports and charts on the stock.
A number of financial publishers report revenues in formats that are far easier
to read than the formal SEC reports. On the Wall Street Research Net results
page, you’ll find links to several of these sites. For example, compare the Zacks Annual Income Statement for Amzaon with the SEC document and
you’ll see a refreshing difference.
More valuable for most investors are the analysts’ estimates for future
earnings, which you’ll find on the WSRN results page under Earnings Estimates.
For a sample, see the Zacks
Earnings Estimates for Amazon.
Look for Internet Stock Report to provide more financial information,
integrated into the stock report articles using this new site. We’re hard at
work on some major enhancements to ISR that should make it easier for you to
perform research and make investment decisions.
Introducing Internet StockTracker, the new weekly e-mail newsletter from
internet.com Corp. Every Friday internet.com will deliver to your e-mail
in-box the latest performance data on individual Internet companies and
their competitors. Internet StockTracker will deliver to you all the
statistics you need to assess the week’s activity.
Subscribe today and receive the Charter Rate of $127 — a savings of
$100 off the regular subscription price!
e-newsletters
