Free ISPs Among Internet Standouts on Record Nasdaq Day

Internet issues remained strong in Tuesday’s afternoon trading, helping the
Nasdaq achieve its largest single point gain in its history. Helping investor sentiment, the Federal Reserve Tuesday opted to stand pat on interest rates during its final meeting of the year.


internet.com’s Internet Stock Index gained 43.20, or 5.21 percent, to
871.86, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 127.17 to 3911.04 and the Dow Jones
industrial average closed up 56.27 to 11200.54.


Yahoo! (YHOO)
rose 36-1/16 to 405-9/16. Web Side Story, a traffic analysis company,
reported that Yahoo! now accounts for close to 56 percent of all search
engine referrals.

Juno Online Services (JWEB)
gained 37-3/4, or 130 percent, to 66-3/4. The stock surged following
Monday’s announcement that the free e-mail pioneer will now offer
free Internet access to its users. The news also benefitted Britain’s Freeserve (FREE), sending shares up 17-1/4 to 101-1/4.

Business-to-business remained a hot sector as CommerceOne (CMRC)
jumped 57 to 480 and Internet
Capital Group
(ICGE)
rocketed 40-3/8 higher to 184.

NBC Internet (NBCI)
leaped 14-1/4 to 93-1/4. Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown initiated coverage of
the Web media company with a “strong buy” and set a $120 target.


Disney Internet tracking stock, GO.com (GO)
advanced 5-7/8 to 27-3/4. Schroder & Co. upgraded the stock to an “outperform
significantly” and attached a $33 price target.


Akamai Technologies (AKAM)
rose 15-5/8 to 301-7/8. Road Runner will deploy Akamai’s servers across its
high-speed Internet access network.


CMGI (CMGI)
soared 47-13/16 to 270. Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget started coverage
with a near-term “accumulate” and a long-term “buy” rating.


Media Metrix came out with its monthly Web ratings; important at such early
stages in the Internet’s evolution, these numbers give Internet stocks a lot
of their momentum.


According to the firm, total U.S. Web users increased
750,000 from 63.9 million in October to 64.6 million in November. The
percentage growth is better than the past four months, which averaged
240,000 Web users.


More importantly, there was evidence of strong growth in
average minutes and pageviews per user. These metrics have a large impact on
advertising and e-commerce dollars. Once again, It seems Internet investors
are riding the fourth quarter seasonal momentum that these Media Metrix
numbers seem to reinforce.

internet.com’s CyberAtlas publishes the full Media Metrix monthly reports.


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