Shares are being bought, and then dumped a couple of days later. Before there was an Internet, this current mania played itself out under different names. Speculative mania goes back as far as time. Past manias existed around the issuance of shares in the South Sea trading company, railroad stocks in the U.S. in the 1800s, and most recently, biotechnology companies in the early 1980's. Every one of these has ended the same way.
Prices eventually collapse as the hype fades and reality sets in.
In a mania, the valuation of a company is ignored. Stock prices do not reflect any fundamental economic basis. The prices of the web stocks relative to their sales, earnings, and book values are so outrageously high that they're meaningless. He said he'd fail anyone who turned in an answer. For an investment to be successful, it must be attractive on an absolute AND a relative basis.