Miners Lead Net Stock Surge

Internet stocks soared Monday
following another Nasdaq record close Friday, up 3.37%
at 4914.79. Last mile telcos and budding ISPs lead the
Australian market.

Pilbara Mining (PIL) gained Aus 22 cents to $1.15 on
their Aus $800,000 investment in Request. Pilbara
brought networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO) on
board as a preferred supplier last week. “Cisco’s xDSL
solution uniquely positions Request DSL to provide not
only high-speed access at a competitive price, but
also facilitates a range of new services with the
potential to turn current business models upside
down, accelerate telco revenue streams and provide a
rich set of capabilities at affordable prices,” Cisco
Systems Kurt Hansen, said.

Last mile telecommunications carrier, Datafast (DFT)
jumped 9% to 48 cents at midday. Datafast announced it
will roll out Australia’s first commercial Voice over
Internet Protocol network (VoIP). Datafast uses
technology similar to that of market darling Davnet
(DVT). Davnet was up 4.2% at $3.98 at midday.

Imperial Mines (IMP), yet another mining come Internet
investor, surged early Monday. Imperial ticked up
1cent or 4.2% after announcing Catcha.com has
successfully completed another round of capital
raising.

Looksmart (LOK) dipped 17 cents or 3.8% to $4.30
Monday as Australian investors decided to break off
their love affair with the dual listed search engine.
Looksmart jumped over 3% on the Nasdaq Friday but the
stock’s lack of liquidity on both sides of the Pacific
saw the dark side of arbitraging rear its head.

Online broker E*trade Australia (ETR) moved up 20
cents or 6.31% to $3.30 after some inspiring words
from CEO Kerry Roxburgh. E*trade Australia now lays
claim to 30% of online trades in Australia and has
over 43,000 accounts. E*trade cited it’s relationship
with ANZ bank as the main contributing factor for its
astounding 26% month on month growth in account
numbers.

Reckon (RKN) was flat at $1.72 at midday. Reckon holds
the license to Intuit Corp.’s Quicken software in
Australia and the financial services portal
www.quicken.com.au. The market seemed nonplussed by
Reckon’s 110% growth in sales of financial software
and services. However, the company is confident of a
windfall when the Goods and Services Tax is
implemented in July and a recently announced
joint-venture with Singapore Press Holdings has Reckon
in pole position to grab revenues from the growing
Asian market.

Mobile e-mail provider, Pocketmail (PKT), picked up 2
cents to 55 cents Monday after launching its
proprietary devices to market.