US investors are running up the prices of Internet stocks, lured by attractive gains and the hope that the World Wide Web will be crucial to future commerce and communications.
These are fledgling, quirky enterprises that might not appear to be the safest investment bets, like cyberspace bookstore Amazon.com, software maker Inktomi and Internet browser Lycos.
Companies like these have seen their share prices double in the last two weeks. On Thursday, shares in Internet media company Yahoo! Inc shot up after announcing a per-share dividend of 15 cents instead of the Wall Street forecast of 9 cents, although profit-taking drove them down later.
The combined market capitalisation of Amazon.com and Yahoo! - both founded in 1994 - total nearly $10 billion, a figure that equals those of more established companies like aluminium manufacturer Alcoa and toymaker giant Mattel.
The Nasdaq, the electronic exchange on which many high-tech stocks are traded, has been flying from record to record.
"I've never seen anything like this in any sector," said Ms Andrea William, of the investment firm Volpe Brown Whelan in San Francisco.
Most of the buying has been by individual investors ready to take risks that turn off the major mutual fund managers.
"It's becoming clear to people how integrated the Internet will be into all of our lives, from a consumer's perspective or from business' perspective," said Ms William, who warned that some buying had been "indiscriminate". One pressing question is whether the companies are actually worth the billions that they trade for on the stock exchange.
Mr Steve Horen, of NationsBank Montgomery Securities, recently downgraded Amazon.com from "buy" to "hold" on the grounds that the share price was too high.
However, the upward trend has been hard to resist, especially as major telecommunications firms and media groups seek to jump on the Internet bandwagon.
Search engines, which most people use to manoeuvre around the Web, have been the object of a virtual buying frenzy as media groups seek ways to get access to millions of Internet users.
In early June, entertainment giant Walt Disney and General Electric, which owns NBC television, announced a deal worth tens of millions of dollars for a Web "portal".
