The Internet Retailer Online Retail Index of 25 e-commerce stocks surged 6.8% Monday as Wall Street celebrated the administration’s latest financial rescue plan. Five of the e-commerce stocks, all web-only retailers, registered double-digit percentage gains in share price.
The gain in the Online Retail Index was in line with the broader market, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index also surged 6.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up 7.1%.
Among the e-commerce stocks, greeting cards e-retailer American Greetings led the way with a gain of 25.2% in its stock price. Next came Drugstore.com, increasing by just over 15.0%, followed by jeweler Blue Nile at nearly 15.0%, off-price general merchandiser Overstock.com 11.7% and United Online, owner of florist FTD.com, up 10.2%. Of the 25 stocks, 24 gained yesterday and content management technology vendor Interwoven was even for the day.
At the start of today’s trading, the Online Retail Index stood at 112.4, up 12.4% since Jan. 1, 2009.
However, some stocks within the index have done much better, and others much worse than the index average. Despite its recent surge, American Greetings is off 23% year to date, online jeweler Bidz.com off nearly 24%, United Online down 30% and music e-retailer RealNetworks off 36.8%. Among the big winners are Amazon.com, up 47.4% since Jan. 1, Netflix, up 45.2%, VistaPrint ahead 43.5%, ATG ahead 35.8%, Akamai up 31.2% and Omniture up 30.8%.
Amazon’s stock illustrates the wild roller-coaster e-commerce stocks have taken in the past 15 months, along with the broader market. Amazon’s stock closed Dec. 28, 2007, at 94.45, sunk to a low of 35.03 Nov. 20, finished 2008 at 51.28 and opened today at 74.80. If any e-commerce stock has proven to be recession-proof it is movie rental leader Netflix whose opening price today, 43.09, is 60% ahead of its closing price at the end of 2007, 26.93.
The 25 companies in the Internet Retailer Online Retail Index are: Akamai Technologies, Amazon.com Inc., American Greetings Corp., Art Technology Group Inc., Bidz.com Inc., Blue Nile Inc., CyberSource Corp., DemandTec Inc., Digital River Inc., Drugstore.com Inc., eBay Inc., GSI Commerce Inc., Interwoven Inc., Keynote Systems Inc., LivePerson Inc., Netflix Inc., NutriSystem Inc., Omniture Inc., Overstock.com Inc., PetMed Express Inc., RealNetworks Inc., Shutterfly Inc., Systemax Inc., United Online Inc. (owner of FTD.com) and VistaPrint Ltd.
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