Internet Update:

Baby, You Can Drive My Car!*

Dateline: 01/17/00

Canadian Internet Index Index Software E-business E-commerce
Jan. 7, 2000 1034.5 1165.0 1038.6 951.6
Jan. 14, 2000 1145.0 1307.0 1197.4 967.8*

* without TD Waterhouse - 987.4

Since the beginning of the year there have been five stocks we track that have returned better than 40%. One of them, of course, is red hot Certicom which is up 59.01% since New Year's. Infowave has also been rockin', up 48.92% And the company topping this week's Movers & Shakers Reoport is Montreal based Informission, up 43.43% for the year.

But the two top stocks are both tiny and relatively unknown. And both are roughly in the same field - the automobile industry. Megawheels.com is up an amazing 64.0% for the year. It had a market cap of only $10 million and closed at exactly a dollar Dec. 31.. Carbiz.com, up 60.38%, had about double the market cap - $20 million and closed at $1.06 last year.

We don't speak often of the stocks on our Penny Stock List, but one in particular is worth noting - Global Investment.com. This company has just launched its much awaited website, made a few significant announcements, and jumped 80% in price in one day on Jan. 13, going from $0.85 to $1.55 befoire settling back to $1.28 Friday.

This week we profile Megawheels.com. Beep beep! Beep beep! Yeah!

Movers & Shakers

This week 29 out of 87 stocks tracked moved 10% or more. Of these, an amazing 25 were advancers and 4 were decliners. There are a number of signs that the stock market is turning bullish including a lot of newspaper reports citing bearish concerns among analysts. This week's Movers & Shakers Report certainly seems to point in that direction. To see the Movers & Shakers as a pop-up chart, click the button. To see it as a separate page with the discussion on the same page, click here.

Topping our list this week is a powerhouse from Quebec we've profiled here before - Informission Inc. (IFN - TSE) with a 42.57% gain. This e-business solutions provider has giant Quebecor as a major shareholder and a strategic alliance with Quebecor's Intellia subsidiary. Driving the stock this week is the company's announcement it was acquiring the French Cythere S.A., a large company in the same field with such notable clients as L'Oreal, Evian, Michelin and Club Med.

Second on our list is Cryptologic (CRY - TSE) with a jump of 36.07%. The British William Hill company signed a licensing agreement to use Cryptologic's software. William Hill is one of the oldest gaming companies in the U.K. accounting for 23% of betting shop turnover. It holds a 42% market share of the telephone wagering industry.

On Friday, Bear Stearns gaming analyst Jason Ader issued a report on the Internet Gaming industry listing Cryptologic as a rising star.

Third on our list is Janna Systems (JAN - TSE), an e-Relationship Management solutions provider for the financial services industry. On Jan. 5 the company announced a major contract with Dain Rauscher, the tenth largest full service brokerage in the U.S. and on Jan. 14, the company was named to the exclusive Top 50 E-Business Solutions Developers on Oracle. This is a major triumph for Janna as the companies named are selected from an international competition.

Of particular interest on this week's list are the fourth and fifth place finishers - Megawheels.com (MGW - CDNX) with a 31.2% gain and Carbiz.com (CZ - CDNX) with a 30.77% gain. Both are in online auto sales. And the two companies are the top gainers overall for the year to date, up 64.0% and 60.38% respectively. Why online auto sales? Why now?

In the case of Megawheels.com, the impetus has been an alliance with Canada's national newspaper, the Globe & Mail. Late last year the Globe introduced automotive insert sections into its Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver editions called GlobeMegawheels. After enthusiastic reception there, it introduced the insert to Victoria, Ottawa and Toronto on Jan. 13.

The wheels section is also now part of the multi-faceted Globe & Mail website network. The globefund and globeinvestor are already widely recognized as being among the finest financial websites in Canada. And now there's globemegawheels! No wonder the stock's on a tear.

And what about Carbiz.com? That is a different story. The Carbiz.com website is actually owned and operated by Data Gathering Service, which claims to be North America's "leading developer of Automotive related Information Systems and Software products". Besides website development, the company provides specialty software for auto industry including Showroom and Deskman 2000. The company has an extensive list of clientele it has helped get on line. It has four offices in Canada and three in the U.S..

In December, Carbiz.com announced it was seeking approval from the SEC to list in the U.S. On Jan. 14, the Canadian Venture Exchange halted trading pending an announcement. Something's cooking.

The two companies have very different focuses and each seems to be prospering. Whether the simultaneous excellent performance of their respective stocks is coincidence or synergy is anyone's guess.

Other notables in this week's report include Certicom (CIC - TSE) which has been on a tear, up 26.62% for the week and 59.01% for the year. This encryption specialist is in its second consecutive week of double digit gains on a couple of announcements including a partnership with Datakey Inc. to deliver the first Smart Card solution bridging the wired and wireless world. It's the third best performer for the year after the two auto businesses mentioned above.

Infowave Software (IW - TSE), profiled here last week, is in its third week of major gains. Mosaic Group (MGX - TSE), Cyberplex (CX - TSE) and Eiger Technologies (AXA - TSE) are all in their second week of double digit gains. On the losing side, Starfire Technologies (SFI - CDNX) is in its second major down week.

Our Weekly Updates

We've put up the new numbers for our Internet Index and added several stocks to our Penny Stock List and Billion Dollar Baby List. You'll also find the complete weekly and YTD changes for all the stocks on our Movers & Shakers Master List.

Canadian Internet Index
Canadian Internet Penny Stock List
Yankee Stock List
Billion Dollar Babies
Movers & Shakers Master List

This week we profile Megawheels.com. Previously profiled Informission is also linked below.

Megawheels.com
Informission
Previous Profiles

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