cover image NETWORTH: Successful Investing in the Companies That Will Prevail Through Internet Booms and Busts

NETWORTH: Successful Investing in the Companies That Will Prevail Through Internet Booms and Busts

Stephen E. Frank, Steven E. Frank, . . Simon & Schuster/Wall Street Journal, $25 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-1093-5

"The demise of so many dot-coms means—a bit counterintuitively—that for everyone who sat out the market's gravity-defying rise, the time to get involved may finally have arrived," declares Frank, the on-air Internet correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. In guiding readers to solid ground in today's so-called new economy, he avoids rehashing some notable dot-com investing disasters, such as theStreet.com and ValueAmerica. Instead, Frank refreshingly advises readers to step back and take a broader look at how the Internet has transformed the economy and will continue to do so. With this big-picture perspective, he maintains, investors can safely diversify and take advantage of Internet-related businesses that are still booming. According to Frank, this means looking at large, diversified companies, rooted firmly in both the old and new economies, such as AOL Time Warner; consumer-oriented companies, like Yahoo! and eBay; B2B firms and other, more traditional companies that service the Internet economy, such as Gateway, Motorola and UPS. Given the dramatic downturn of the stock market this spring, Frank's well-reasoned approach is both cautious and optimistic. He offers very credible explanations for both the Internet's explosive growth as well as the poor stock performance of many companies. His advice—"figure out your objectives... use common sense... do your homework"—isn't new, but Frank's expertise in making the elusive nuances of investing is clear: not only are his suggestions sound, they can be readily understood by even novice investors. (May 14)