re: 30 daysBombed-out stocks may get booted off market
by Alwyn Scott
Seattle Times business reporter
Ten Northwest companies, including ailing dot-com N2H2, face being kicked off the stock market because their share prices have fallen to less than a dollar.
Eleven other companies in the region - former Internet highfliers drugstore.com, Aptimus, Network Commerce and Onvia.com among them - have come close to triggering the delisting process, according to a study by The Seattle Times.
These 21 companies are part of a national pandemic of bombed-out stocks that appears likely to set a record in 2001 for companies being ejected from stock exchanges, after a lull last year.
The wild stock market is largely to blame. As the roaring bull run of the 1990s screeched to a halt in 2000, shares of many young technology companies fell 80 percent or 90 percent to prices below the $1 minimum that most exchanges require. As the market malaise deepened, it dragged down companies in other industries, too.
The slowdown now rippling through the economy is threatening to carry the decline further. Disappointing earnings reports and cutbacks by many large companies have raised concerns about a recession, dimmed recovery prospects for many troubled companies and set the stage for what could be unprecedented levels of delistings.
"I haven't seen it like this before," said Randall Williams-Gurian, founder and president of Northwest Capital Management, a Seattle fund-management firm. "This is the worst bear market in technology stocks and the worst capital market in 30 years."