The dangers of attempting to catch the rollercoaster ride of buying Internet companies can be seen in the rise and fall of 2TheMart.com.

A local investment analyst tells me the company's fundamentals are typical of the startups on which people are making big, basically stupid bets, as speculators attempt to cash in on the Internet's wild ride.

The bets are stupid because people are not looking beyond the name and the industry before they buy the stock. You at least look under the hood of a car before you buy it. Why not do basic research on a potential investment before buying? The analyst had a laptop on his desk near his Bloomberg machine. Bloomberg is used by analysts to keep track of the stock markets and companies. He showed me the Yahoo! chat site on which a continual stream of comments were being written by supposedly "market observers''.

It's a fascinating exercise in how gullible people are. He has watched comments on the chat site spark a buying spree in an unknown stock which suddenly pops up on Bloomberg's list of top ten active stocks for the day.

Investors are betting their money on companies they know absolutely nothing about other than it's in the Internet sector and someone has written on the chat site that it's a good buy.

Closer research of 2TheMart.com would have revealed some unappetising results.

In January this year 2TheMart.com sold itself to the stockmarket in the then golden age of Internet stocks (circa 1998 to January 1999) as a company providing "a person-to-person auction environment'' with "e-mail access, chat rooms, security for transaction processing, escrow options, user feedback and the ability to have real time, live video auctions''.

The idea wasn't fresh; eBay Inc, uBid Inc., Onsale Inc. and Bid.com International Inc were already established Web presences -- as far as one can be in the fast moving Internet industry.

Investors were willing to bet on a competitor. The stock went to $50 on January 20 for a market value of $569 million. On June 10, the company said its auction site, originally scheduled to debut by June 30, wouldn't be running until the fourth quarter.

The current price of $13 1/8, shows that some investors don't care very much about who they're entrusting their money to after finding out about those behind the company.

2TheMart.com chief executive Dominic Magliarditi, 35, and chairman Steven Rebeil, 36, had been denied licenses to run a casino after the Nevada Gaming Commission found they were "not of good character, honesty and integrity'' and shouldn't run a public company, according to a Bloomberg story on June 3.

Bloomberg began the story with the sentence "2TheMart.com Inc.'s Internet auction site is still under development. It has no customers or revenue and has never released a balance sheet.'' Magliarditi had been fined $4,000, publicly reprimanded and placed on one-year probation by the Nevada State Bar Association following a conditional guilty plea that he was in a conflict of interest when he represented clients on both sides of an issue.

The two, who own 2TheMart shares worth $138 million apiece, had reportedly also been caught by the IRS for evading taxes. Magliarditi had testified he had underreported his income by $70,000 and owed an additional $24,000. He also testified he altered a tax form on a partnership helping to lower Rebeil's 1994 tax bill.

The NGC also uncovered allegations by Rebeil's former lawyer who claimed to discover his client had diverted "millions of dollars'' from a home building company in which he was a partner to finance construction of his personal residence.

On July 15, Deloitte & Touche LLP said it had quit as company auditor. While 2TheMart.com may still come through as the Internet's next big thing, there are always more likely suspects coming on the market.

Factoid of the week: Only one in 10 day traders make a profit according to a North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) study. Seventy percent of those who trade on the ups and downs of the market daily not only lose but will "almost certainly lose everything they invest'', said Ronald L.

Johnson, a consultant who analysed a sample of day-trading accounts for NASAA.

The Electronic Trading Association estimates there are 4,000 to 5,000 active day traders.

Eric MacIver, 22, is one lucky guy. Mr. MacIver, billed as an Internet entrepreneur from Mesa, Arizona, purchased an option to buy the Internet domain name drugs.com from the owner of an Internet marketing firm. Mr.

MacIver then put the name up for bid and got $823,456. He had originally bought the option with the intention of establishing his own online pharmacy.

At least Mr. MacIver was selling a generic name and wasn't engaged in cybersquatting, which refers to the actions of those who attempt to register the Internet version of a famous trademark name in the hope that the owner will pay you big bucks for it.

The US Senate has passed a bill which undermines those who try to profit by reserving domain names which are the same as or "confusingly similar'' to a trademarked name, word or phrase.

Must have been the emissions: A Wireless Technology Research study has found correlation between cell phone emissions and a slightly higher incidence of human brain tumours, cell growth in human blood micronuclei, and DNA breakage in rats.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, in Manchester England, a judge sent a British oil worker to jail for one year over charges he refused to switch off his cell phone during an international flight.

Neil Whitehouse, 28, was convicted of "recklessly and negligently endangering'' a British Airways flight carrying 91 passengers from Madrid to Manchester.

Although Mr. Whitehouse didn't made any airborne calls, he refused to turn his phone off and aviation experts told a three-day trial that radio waves from the phone could have sparked an explosion or affected the Boeing 737's navigational systems as it flew at 31,000 feet.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at techtattle ygazette.newsmedia.bm or 295-5881 ext. 248 or 28-3854.

Tiny tech titan: An ant carries a one millimetre-square microchip in its mandibles. The photo, released recently by Huddersfield University Precision Tech centre, illustrate the leading-edge work being done in the field of nanotechnology and ultra-precision engineering. The centre has become the first in the US to be able to calibrate measurements and instruments to an accuracy of one 10,000th of a millimetre.