Hi Fallguy,Of course your right about the currency. However,...

Hi Fallguy,

Of course your right about the currency. However, Bancorp were being pretty conservative.

The $4 US mark should be achieved within the next fortnight. Don't forget, we have Over and more importantly Yahoo who are posting their 4thQ results.

Yahoo next week !!! They have already released to Morgan Stanley what there 4th Q results should look like. Pretty impressive. This will have an immediate impact on Looksmart and others within the sector.
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Dow Jones Business News
Yahoo CEO: 2002 Site Usage, User Growth Up 'Dramatically'
Monday January 6, 7:14 pm ET
By Riva Richmond


NEW YORK -- Internet giant Yahoo Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - News) said its usage and user-numbers rose "dramatically" in 2002, with the fastest growth seen among those users apt to spend the most money on Yahoo services.
User growth, particularly among paid users, is key to the success of Yahoo's strategy to increase revenue from premium services and e-commerce transactions, which are paid by consumers and small businesses, while decreasing its reliance on revenue from brand advertising, such as banner ads.

Chief Executive Terry Semel, speaking Monday at an investor conference sponsored by Morgan Stanley, declined to provide updated user statistics in advance of Yahoo's fourth-quarter earnings report scheduled for next week.

At the end of the third quarter, Yahoo had attracted 201 million "unique users," or individual visitors, to its site, up 14% from the third quarter of 2001. But the growth was much faster among users Yahoo is more likely to turn into paying customers; users who have registered with Yahoo and use its site regularly rose 37% to 93 million. Yahoo said it had 1.55 million paying customers at the end of September, nearly seven times the previous year's level.

Faster growth in the high-quality registered and paying-user categories is driving increases in average per-user spending, said Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker, also speaking at the investor conference.

Yahoo brought in an average of 42 cents for every unique user each month as of Sept. 31. The company has pledged it will double that number, as well as its revenue-per-employee number, now at $278, from 2001 levels over three to five years.

Though Mr. Semel talked up 2002 user growth, he held to Yahoo's fourth-quarter projection of Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $69 million to $79 million on revenue of $263 million to $288 million.

For the full year, Yahoo expects Ebitda of $190 million to $200 million on revenue of $930 million to $955 million, compared to Ebitda of $44 million on revenue of $717 million in 2001. For 2003, Yahoo puts Ebitda at $250 million to $300 million on revenue of $1.075 billion to $1.175 billion. Yahoo hopes to lift revenue to $1.8 billion in two to four years.

Mr. Semel declined to comment on how Yahoo's recently announced purchase of Internet-search-technology company Inktomi Corp. (NasdaqNM:INKT - News) will affect its relationships with Google Inc., which provides Yahoo with some back-end search technology, or Overture Services Inc. (NasdaqNM:OVER - News) , which provides it with paid listings for search pages.

Though he called relationships with both companies "good," Mr. Semel said Yahoo's primary concern is to "do a better job for our users."

He said "search is a fundamental component of Yahoo" and that the company intends to be "a major global player," in part, by putting Inktomi's technology together with Yahoo's size and scale.

-Riva Richmond, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5670; [email protected]

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Cheers markco