Remembering a Couple Bubble Darlings

With shares of Twitter(NYSE:TWTR) up by more than 75 percent on its first day of trading, some traders and investors alike may be going through a deja vu moment. A little over a decade ago the dot com bubble officially burst. The days of meteoric initial public offerings for companies at insane valuations came to an end. Many of these technology darlings eventually died out, little in terms of product or even thought for that matter left investors owning a piece of nothing. As the stock market reaches yet another all time high some investors may be questioning the quality of today’s technology darlings. A series of technology favorites including Twitter, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) , Yelp (NYSE:YELP) , OpenTable (NASDAQ:OPEN) , and like have reach record highs though lofty valuations. Let us take a look a couple favorites from back in the day.

In 1998 AudioNet was renamed to Broadcast.com and set a one-day record for IPOs by rising almost 250 percent from its opening price. A series of press releases and pump from management pushed every retail investor and their brother into the name. The stock closed up at $62.75 per share from their initial trading at $18 per share. Mark Cuban and fellow founders became billionaires, hundreds of employees became millionaires on paper. At the time the company had little in terms of revenue or product, however, pump is pump and the stock soared.

Onvia.com Inc. (NASDAQ:ONVI) jumped 193 percent, to $61.5 on its initial public offering. The company provided an e-marketplace for small businesses to buy and sell services and products. Today the company is left a mere grain of what it used to be. Onvia was able to price 8 million shares at $21 each, far above their original price range of $11-$13 a share. The company now trades with virtually no volume at $5 per share even after splits.

History keeps Wall Street honest, however, it seems reasonable to say a small technology bubble has formed. Struggles with revenue and valuation may lead to problems down the road. Until then, enjoy the ride.