In March 2000, the very month that the dot-com bubble burst, Merrill Lynch launched its Internet Strategies Fund. Talk about dismal timing. “People thought that somehow the Internet boom was going to go on forever,” says Russel Kinnel, Morningstar’s director of mutual fund research. The fund lasted only a year before closing its doors.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., riding the wave of investor interest in fast-growing, privately held technology firms such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., plans to start a fund that would invest in Internet and digital-media companies, people familiar with the matter said.
The planned investment fund, run from the New York company’s asset-management unit, is expected to raise between $500 million and $750 million, these people said. Marketing materials were sent to prospective investors starting about two weeks ago.
Has the shark been jumped, as has been alluded to more than once? When you (again) start hearing about “page views,” “eyeballs,” and the like, run for the hills.
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