The correction that continues to stagger Internet stocks as spring slides
toward summer has taken the Nasdaq down by 17.3 percent for the year through
Monday’s trading. Even harder-hit has been internet.com’s Internet Stock
Index, which through Monday has fallen 24.4 percent this year.
Amazingly, only one ISDEX company America
Online has gained in trading over the past three
months, and that by only 2.2 percent through Monday.
With the market straining to find the bottom in recent weeks, the number of
ISDEX stocks posting gains in the past month rose to 13. For all of this
year, a dozen ISDEX stocks have gone up in value. The list is comprised
mostly of infrastructure, security and Internet services companies.
Heres a look at the top ISDEX gainers this year:
1. Check Point Software , up 64 percent. Since reaching an all-time high of $284 per
share on March 8 in the wake of a deal with Telecom Italia, CHKP has slumped
by 42.6 percent. But its early-year run-up, helped in great part by a series
of hacker attacks on major Web sites, gave it plenty of padding.
2. Juniper Networks , up 49 percent. The maker of Internet backbone routers blew
away Wall Street estimates in April, posting its second straight profitable
quarter.
3. Inktomi , up 33
percent. The market leader in caching server and search engine software last
month reported its first profitable quarter. The market continues to treat
INKT like a critical Internet infrastructure player and rightly so.
4. Verio , up 25
percent. It took a doubling in price over the past month to get Web hosting
company Verio’s stock into the plus column, and that was due primarily to
the purchase of VRIO by Asian communications giant NTT Communications for $5
billion. The deal, announced in early May, values VRIO in the range of $70
per share. VRIO closed Monday at $57.69.
5. Network Solutions , up 16 percent. Shares of NSOL have gotten two big boosts since
January. First, the company’s acquisition by security software vendor
VeriSign for $21 billion, announced in early March, and then late last month
after NSOL reported a tripling of earnings in Q1.
