Stories by: Mark A. Mowrey

Investors have shown great interest in optical networking and infrastructure IPOs recently, but one such IPO this week begs the question of whether investors have forgotten the lessons learned from the recent market downturn.

For a while, it looked like any Internet company could go public and be a big hit no matter what it did for a living. But those days are history: Now it's doubtful that many Internet companies can go public at all.

The apocalyptic 1,000-plus-point, 25 percent drop in the Nasdaq last week -- the market's largest point and percentage drop ever -- has underwriters and executives of companies that are planning public stock offerings running to exit the pipeline. The general idea is to put the IPO (initial public offering) on hold until calmer times promise a successful opening. But given last week's turmoil, that day might be a long way off.

Once a consumer is drawn into shopping online for a particular product category, two thirds of their spending in that category will go to Internet companies, according to a recent study by ActivMedia Research.

If you owned a particular stock, would you be more likely to buy the company's products? A new report says yes.