True believers and naysayers aside, there’s no doubting the stats that tell the story: eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) leads all Internet IPOs for 1998 with a 1,224% rise from pricing back in June. Next in line was only about half as good–up 653%, the venerable Inktomi (NASDAQ:INKT).
Third in IPODEX, our weekly and year-to-date scorecard comes Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM), which would have had a bigger percent pop had it not gone public at the group leading $24 per share, leaving no money on the table so to speak.
Why these three are leaders of the pack are clear: eBay defined a new marketspace and as a pioneer gets to define what a personal auction is; Inktomi decided to provide software solutions rather than compete with the portals/hubs for marketshare, resulting in it becoming a cache king used by everyone from AOL to Yahoo to MSN for various software services.
Broadcom dominates the broadband cable set-top box market as well as the telco DSL fatband side, thus playing both sides of the faster Internet pipeline game at the same time.
New issues that hatched the past few weeks include direct marketer/community provider XOOM.com (NASDAQ:XMCM) which priced above range and sold 1 million more shares than planned due to strong demand. Most recently, wholesale guide and people, place, and thing finder Infospace.com (NASDAQ:INSP) also priced above range–$15 vs. original $10 target–and with 1 million more shares than originally planned.
For both XOOM.com and Infospace.com, the offerings translate into a healthy inflow of working capital to hyperspeed their respective enterprises to the next level we believe.
INTERNET.COM’S | Ticker | Share price | Share price | % change | % change | IPO | IPO |
IPODEX | symbol | 12/17/98 | 12/10/98 | period | >from IPO | price | date |
eBay | EBAY | $238.31 | $186.13 | 28.0% | 1224.0% | $18.00 | * IPO 6-10-98 |
Inktomi | INKT | $135.50 | $116.50 | 16.3% | 652.8% | $18.00 | * IPO 7-31-98 |
Broadcom | BRCM | $107.88 | $101.00 | 6.8% | 349.5% | $24.00 | * IPO 6-12-98 |
Broadcast.com | BCST | $68.50 | $73.75 | -7.1% | 280.6% | $18.00 | * IPO 3-19-98 |
Verisign | VRSN | $51.94 | $50.00 | 3.9% | 271.0% | $14.00 | * IPO 2-10-98 |
theglobe.com | TGLO | $33.00 | $34.06 | -3.1% | 266.7% | $9.00 | * IPO 11-13-98 |
Digital River | DRIV | $29.13 | $22.75 | 28.0% | 242.6% | $8.50 | * IPO 9-24-98 |
Exodus | EXDS | $50.88 | $50.75 | 0.2% | 239.2% | $15.00 | * IPO 8-11-98 |
EarthWeb | EWBX | $39.00 | $40.13 | -2.8% | 178.6% | $14.00 | * IPO 11-11-98 |
DoubleClick | DCLK | $45.19 | $34.38 | 31.5% | 165.8% | $17.00 | * IPO 7-17-98 |
Beyond.com | BYND | $21.69 | $26.06 | -16.8% | 141.0% | $9.00 | * IPO 6-17-98 |
Infospace.com (IPO 12/15) | INSP | $33.81 | NM | NM | 125.4% | $15.00 | * IPO 12-15-98 |
GeoCities | GCTY | $36.94 | $36.50 | 1.2% | 117.3% | $17.00 | * IPO 1-30-98 |
XOOM.com | XMCM | $29.50 | $30.19 | -2.3% | 110.7% | $14.00 | * IPO 12-09-98 |
24/7 Media | TFSM | $28.00 | $26.25 | 6.7% | 100.0% | $14.00 | * IPO 4-21-98 |
Netgravity | NETG | $17.94 | $16.56 | 8.3% | 99.3% | $9.00 | * IPO 8-11-98 |
ISS Group | ISSX | $38.69 | $41.88 | -7.6% | 75.9% | $22.00 | * IPO 3-24-98 |
Cyberian Outpost | COOL | $27.88 | $22.75 | 22.5% | 54.9% | $18.00 | * IPO 2-20-98 |
CDnow | CDNW | $17.69 | $17.81 | -0.7% | 10.5% | $16.00 | * IPO 8-14-98 |
TOTAL | 1,017.63 | 927.44 | 9.7% | 270.7% | 274.50 | ||
AVERAGE | 56.53 | 51.52 | 9.7% | 270.7% | 15.25 |
In the period during December 10-17, the biggest gainer was DoubleClick (NASDAQ:DCLK), up 32% after getting a “buy” tout from Salomon Smith Barney and price target of $65 per share for the next 12 months. No sympathy for fellow ad network firm 24/7 (NASDAQ:TFSM) as it posted only 6.7% upside.
Digital River (NASDAQ:DRIV) and eBay share the week’s second top riser spots with 28% each. Digital River, a software e-tail network, has what we think could be one of the better models–affiliates. That strategy helped it secure a deal with Wal-Mart to sell software via Wal-Mart’s Web site, the fuel behind the DRIV run.
Largest loser in percentages was software e-tailer Beyond.com (NASDAQ:BYND) which had seen some legs about a month ago when talk was that Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) may acquire it. With the rumor gone that leaves Beyond with just the dot com.
Footnote on Infospace’s offer–it came after many Web-based trading outfits imposed trading limits on Internet IPOs and still has performed well in the aftermarket. The first day may have been tempered but eventually demand caught up with INSP anyway.
