So concerned are many so-called "momentum" investors with speed in trading technology stocks on the Nasdaq, the old concept of due diligence is often completely abandoned.

On Wednesday, shares in PairGain Technologies soared 31 per cent after someone posted a bogus announcement on an Internet message site.

The false information - suggesting the company was being acquired - used a free Web page service owned by Lycos to create a site that looked almost identical to that of Bloomberg News, the financial information wire service.

The report was then spread on Yahoo's finance message boards and investors rushed to buy. Ironically, even after Pairgain's executives exposed the hoax the share price maintained more than 10 per cent of its gain.