Monday, March 10, 2003		Feature

THE long winter is over for the Internet stocks. Three years in the frozen wilderness and e-stocks look hot again. The USA is nervously calling it the dotcom comeback. And investors who got burnt when the dot boom bombed are now doing a double take.

And when they look closely at what they see in these gloomy, jittery times, both on the streets and in the markets in New York, these investors are blinking in disbelief. But it is happening - and everyone is talking about it.

The sector that helped kill the bull market is returning. Names such as Amazon, eBay and Yahoo! and a handful of others that stumbled from the carnage of the Internet investment meltdown that greeted the new millennium are pushing forward again. This time the drivers are, dare we say it, profitability, and cash reserves, as opposed to mere speculative dreams.

Some observers believe that the markets over-reacted to the collapse of e-commerce investments, just as they previously went potty at the birth of any old dotcom and sent its value skyrocketing to ridiculous heights on the basis of sheer optimism.

As the US economy grinds through its slump and New York City battles with its own particularly acute recession and unemployment crisis, the Internet stocks are sizzling away where before they had been languishing in disgrace.

The Internet and computer stocks have boosted the technology-heavy Nasdaq market this year while the more earthy stocks measured in the Dow Jones Industrial Average continue to struggle.

The share price of the Internet trader Amazon.com is up 13 per cent from the beginning of the year. The online auctioneer eBay is also up 13 per cent, while the stocks of the Internet search engine Yahoo! are up a fifth.

Other hot choices of the moment include InfoSpace.com, which provides wireless, broadband and Website businesses with the Internet software. Its shares are up a huge 35 per cent this year, so far. — GNS