SAN FRANCISCO (AFX) -- While Monster Worldwide's customers are encouraged to use its services to track down job leads, the company's new CFO proved that getting the inside track is still best done through personal contacts. Lanny Baker, one of the most well-respected Internet analysts on Wall Street has left his post to become CFO of Monster after years of covering the company Monster Worldwide announced Monday that it had hired the Smith Barney analyst to succeed Michael Sileck, who decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities. Baker will take his post effective immediately. Few sell-side Internet analysts garnered the respect on Wall Street that Baker did. His reports on Google , Yahoo , CNet , Monster and other Internet stocks, were always thought-provoking and insightful. Should Baker be just as good in operations as he was as an analyst, he should be a boost of confidence for Monster shareholders. "Monster gains someone with an excellent reputation on the Street," said Mark Mahaney, Internet analyst at American Technology Research. This is an "A-plus" move for Monster, he added. Baker isn't the first analyst to move to the operational side. Sue Decker was an analyst at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette before she joined Yahoo as the chief financial officer in 2000. As CFO of that fast changing and dynamic company, she's managed to maintain a handle on the finances while delivering a clear message to investors. Chuck Phillips left his job at Morgan Stanley as an analyst covering Oracle in May 2003 to become the company's president. Net bear market Another new week, another dismal start for the Internet sector. Shares of the leading Net companies started the day on the downside yet again. Google declined 1.5 percent to $175. Shares are down more than 9 percent from $193, the price the stock traded at on February 14. That was the day of Google's largest lockup expiration. Yahoo fell slightly, but held above $31. EBay sank 2 percent to $37.99. The stock is down sharply from the $54 level it traded at before it announced its disappointing fourth-quarter results. Amazon.com lost 1 percent to $34.09. The Google lockup release, eBay's disappointing quarter, which sent a signal that the Internet growth machine was slowing down, and last year's run-up appear to be keeping investors at bay. "Some of the Net stocks had a big year last year," said American Technology Research's Mahaney. "EBay and Yahoo were up 80 percent and 67 percent respectively last year, so there may be some profit taking." But eBay's fourth-quarter miss was a startling wake-up call that something was amiss in the Internet sector and that caused multiples to compress across the board, Mahaney suggested. "So you've got a negative tech tape, the lead stock in a sector missing for first time, and largely disappointing results from the December quarter," he added. Crackberries and messaging Yahoo, meanwhile, inked a deal with Research In Motion to pre-install full-color, graphical Yahoo Messenger clients on Blackberry devices in the coming months, according to both companies. The deal is significant for RIM because it's "applications like Yahoo IM will assist in growing not only their consumer user base, but also their enterprise base as IM is becoming an increasingly common application in the workplace," said Brian Blair, hedge fund analyst at Dorado Capital. Research In Motion rose 2 percent in Monday trading. RIM has become a favored stock as its handheld devices that let people access e-mail have dominated the workplace. Mobile workers have become so conditioned, or practically addicted, to looking at their e-mail on the go that the popular Blackberry has been referred to humorously as "Crackberry." Text generation About 134 million American adults have cell phones and 27 percent of them say they have used the text message feature on those phones within the past month, according to just-released information from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The most likely cell-phone text messengers are between the ages of 18 and 27 years old. About 63 percent of that group use the text feature. This compares to 31 percent of the "Generation X" crowd, which ranges from 28 and 39. Fewer than 20 percent of the younger Baby Boomer generation, which range between 40 and 49, use text messaging.
. You can receive Bambi Francisco's weekly commentary via e-mail as well. This story was supplied by MarketWatch. For further information see www.marketwatch.com.
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com
. You can receive Bambi Francisco's weekly commentary via e-mail as well. This story was supplied by MarketWatch. For further information see www.marketwatch.com.
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com