THE DAY AHEAD: Stocks to Watch
Expect the following technology stocks to be among Tuesday's most actively traded issues: Adam.com, Barnesandnoble.com, E*Trade, Lycos, Net Perceptions and Novell.
The company formerly known as A.D.A.M. Software posted a fourth-quarter loss of $1.5 million, or 34 cents a share, on sales of $979,000.
In the year-ago period, it earned $44,000, or 1 cent a share, on sales of $1.58 million.
Its shares closed off 1 5/8 to 20 ahead of the earnings report.
Adam's new business, reflected in its new name, revolves around its consumer health website. The company will continue to spend money to improve its online offering, said Robert s. Cramer Jr., chairman and CEO of Adam.com.
"We intend to invest heavily in development and marketing for the consumer health destination," he said. "We intend to expand by building additional distribution relationships and to continue to expand and invest in proprietary content assets both by internal development and strategic transactions."
The online bookseller priced its IPO of 25 million shares at $18 a share late Monday. Shares will begin trading on Tuesday.
Lead underwriter Goldman Sachs upped the price range to $16 to $18 from $11 to $13 earlier on Monday.
Analysts said Barnesandnoble.com's offering will be hot as Wall Street hopes the company can replicate Amazon.com Inc.'s (Nasdaq: AMZN) success.
"Barnesandnoble.com will do well because it has a brand name, but it's about two years behind Amazon," said Steven Tuen, research director for IPO Value Monitor.
For 1998, Barnesandnoble.com lost $83 million on sales of $61.8 million. Since inception, the company has accumulated net losses of $116.9 million through March 31.
What does a company do when it splits its shares to the point where it can't issue any more without breaking its bylaws? It changes the bylaws, of course! E*Trade is asking its shareholders to double the allowed amount of outstanding shares to 600 million shares. After the 2-for-1 split, E*Trade had about 233 million shares outstanding. The company wants the extra shares for future acquisitions and stock sales. Shares fell 3 1/8 to 50.
The number three Web portal will be added to the Nasdaq-100 index Friday, replacing the recently acquired Fore Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: FORE). This is significant because several money managers mirror the Nasdaq 100 and will have to buy Lycos shares to continue to match the index. Lycos dropped 8 7/8 to 97 3/4.
The online marketing software and services company reported a first quarter loss of 19 cents a share, wider than the loss of 7 cents in the year-earlier period. Net Perceptions went public in March in a 3.65 million share offering priced at $14 a share. The company's shares fell 1 1/2 to 21 1/2.
Can Novell maintain its recent hot streak?
On Tuesday, the resurgent network software developer will report its second-quarter results (estimates).
First Call consensus expects it to earn 10 cents a share in the quarter.
Last quarter, it made $28.8 million, or 9 cents a share, on sales of $285.8 million.
Novell shares hit a 52-week high of 28 1/8 in March after falling to a low of 9 and changed in August.
Nine of the 10 analysts following the stock rate it either a "buy" or "strong buy."
-Eric C. Fleming contributed to this report.