Yesterday was one of those days when any stock even vaguely associated with the internet hitched its wagon to the back of internet content aggregators and rode off into the stratosphere. And it helped fuel rumors that one of the original hyper-valued internet companies, Netscape Communications Corp was finally going to be acquired. When any other internet content aggregator, portals, call them what you will, sees its shares go through the roof, as Yahoo!, Infoseek and Excite have done over the past few days, everybody says it’s merely the markets waking up to a huge opportunity to make a killing on over valued stock. But when it happens to Netscape, as it did yesterday, which in addition to being a software company is also a portal with one of the top five most visited web sites around, acquisition rumors inevitably start flying around. Sun Microsystems Inc was mentioned once again, but nothing was heard to back up any takeover rumor. Netscape’s shares closed up $5.8125, or 29.4% at $25.5625. But most noticeable was the volume, which was a staggering 30.6 million, against a daily average of just 2.4 million. Our take on the matter – and the consensus among those we spoke to – is that it was more the coat-tail effect rather than a likely acquisition at this time. Either that, or it is an incredible coincidence. However, Infoseek was the most heavily-trade stock on the whole Nasdaq exchange in both dollar and share volume terms. It closed up $9.6875, or 28.1% at $44.1875 on volume of 33.8 million; its average was 1.5 million. The total value of shares traded in the stock was $1.38bn. And on an incredible day for internet stocks, Spyglass Inc was the most advanced in percentage terms, rising 70.5% to close at $14.8125.
