Online advertising is mushrooming, thanks to the explosion of the Internet as a global communications medium. So when online ad agency Modem Media. Poppe Tyson MMPT went public on Feb. 5, its stock heated up from its offering price of 16 a share to 45 the same day. It had slumped to 26 by May 18.
Some pros are more bullish than ever.
They think Modem Media is on the way back to 45. The ''high internal growth rate'' at Modem Media in the usually slow first quarter is ''indicative of the shift in ad dollars toward the Internet,'' notes Alexia Quadrani, an analyst at Bear Stearns. She expects the trend will accelerate. And it posted a loss of 5 cents a share, better than the expected 16 cents loss. She sees a loss of 19 cents in 1999 and earnings of 5 cents a share in 2000.