Internet stocks ride the market upswing posting slight gains today as ISDEX climbs 3% to 505.64. With the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meeting Tuesday and Wednesday Wall Street may be sighing with some relief that the rate fest may be getting underway.
More than any other driver the Fed’s influence on the market has been great these past few months as talk centers on a possible 25 basis point increase in rates.
E-Loan (NASDAQ:EELN) debuts Tuesday after pricing its IPO Monday night at $14 per share, above the $11 to $13 target. The Web mortgage/loan service is going public through Goldman Sachs.
Preview Travel (NASDAQ:PTVL) is the most-visited Web travel site according to Media Metrix. The site logged 8 million registered members. Still, PTVL shares have not traveled very far this year — just on a rollercoaster ride since January.
Microsoft’s MSN will use Centraal’s RealNames natural language Web addressing that replaces URLs with names and brands. Instead of typing in “http://www.etcetc…” you type in “brand or name etc” and RealNames finds the sites registered with it. One more step closer to natural language addressing. Network Solutions (NASDAQ:NSOL) owns part of Centraal, a hedge against the domain name game.