The Internet booms…but will it explode?

Investors have proved once again this week that for the time being, the Internet is where money is to be made. Monday's spectacular start for Day Interactive of Basel made the four men at the company helm paper multi-millionaires in minutes.

Investors have proved once again this week that for the time being, the Internet is where money is to be made. Monday’s spectacular start for Day Interactive of Basel made the four men at the company helm paper multi-millionaires in minutes.

However, questions are being asked whether the Internet bubble on the stock markets will burst before long, leaving casualties in its wake.

Involved in Web Information Management, Day Interactive is the eighth company to be listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SWX) New Market. Founded in 1993, it offers software solutions and services for the preparation, management and distribution of business-related information over the Internet, Intranet and Extranet.

Shares in Day Interactive opened 77 per cent higher than the offering price and this followed the previous week’s success of Think Tools on the market. Its shares opened 159 per cent above the offering price.

More than one trader has complained that most of the investors do not seem to know exactly what the young Internet companies turning to the world’s stock exchanges provide as services. Other specialists believe that three-quarters of the new companies will disappear in the next two to three years.

For the time being, the young managers at Day Interactive are confident that they can weather any short-term turbulences because they have charted a long-term course, with seven years of experience already behind them.

The chief development officer, David Nüscheler, says the Internet is an exciting place to be. “The Internet is fascinating because it is not easy to tell where the journey is going. The net means freedom, it is indefinable and there are no restrictions. Someone once said that the Internet is the only creation of mankind which he can neither understand nor control,” he said.