Thomas Weisel Partners

Wall Street is running away from online stocks now that the air has been let out of the Internet bubble. Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) analyst Henry Blodget said Wednesday he won't publish research anymore on CMGI Inc. (CMGI), which gained a penny to $2.95, and IVillage Inc. (IVIL), which rose 11 cents to $1.52. Prudential Securities Inc. dropped coverage of E-Trade Group Inc. (ET), which fell 2 cents to $6.35.

L.A.-based California Pizza Kitchen Inc. got a good reception for its initial public offering on Tuesday, as it sold 5.3 million shares at $15 each. That was the top of the price $13-to-$15 price range the company had hoped to get. The stock will begin trading today on Nasdaq under the symbol CPKI.

USA Interactive Inc. on Wednesday said it has "no intention" of increasing its offer to buy the shares it does not own of three publicly traded subsidiaries, Expedia Inc., Hotels.com and Ticketmaster, even though the value of the deal had dropped by roughly $400 million in three days. At the same time, the media giant acknowledged that it might have to discuss "other possible transaction structures" to get the deal done. It said it would delay a tender offer.

Loudcloud Inc., an Internet consultant headed by Web pioneer Marc Andreessen, has halved the implied market value of the company as it plans its initial public stock sale. Loudcloud would have an initial market value of as much as $674 million, according to amended plans filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company in December had estimated its initial market capitalization would be as much as $1.3 billion.

EBay Inc.'s PayPal unit sued Bank One Corp., the third-largest U.S. credit card issuer, claiming infringement of a patent for conducting financial transactions over the Internet. PayPal contends its online bill-payment system, patented in 1998, is being wrongly used by the Chicago-based bank. The Mountain View, Calif.-based EBay unit seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages in the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del.

Shares of Nordstrom Inc. jumped in late trading after the upscale department store chain reported quarterly net income that beat analysts' estimates and forecast a profit for the current year. Nordstrom rose $1.37, or 12%, to $12.70 after U.S. markets closed. Before earnings were announced, the shares fell 56 cents, or 4.7%, to $11.33. They have dropped 15% this year. "It was strong management through a difficult environment," analyst Patricia Edwards said.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc., which has been transformed from Wall Street's darling into the bane of carb-conscious consumers, scaled back its expansion plans Thursday after posting second-quarter profit that fell far short of expectations. Shares in the doughnut maker fell more than 10%, a slide that began almost immediately after Krispy Kreme announced that it earned $5.7 million, or 9 cents a share, in the three months ended Aug. 1, compared with $13 million, or 21 cents, a year earlier.

Four technology offerings posted solid gains in their Nasdaq debuts Friday, boosted by a rebound in Internet stocks and the thinning of the new-issues calendar. The newcomers--Agile Software Corp., LookSmart Ltd., MyPoints.com Inc. and Lionbridge Technologies Inc.--benefit in some cases from the slimmed-down sizes of their deals, analysts said. Agile (ticker symbol: AGIL) soared 90% to close at $39.88. Bucking a trend, the San Jose company was priced above its upwardly revised range.

Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc., the ticket seller planning to merge with concert promoter Live Nation Inc., said Tuesday that first-quarter profit fell 78% after a drop in the number of tickets sold. Net income declined to $7.25 million, or 12 cents a share, from $32.7 million, or 58 cents, a year earlier, West Hollywood-based Ticketmaster said. Sales rose 7.1% to $373.8 million, buoyed by an acquisition. Ticket volume fell 8%, reflecting the Dec.

Fresh Enterprises Inc. of Thousand Oaks, which owns the Baja Fresh Mexican Grill chain of restaurants, filed Thursday to go public. The firm will attempt to cash in on what has been a hot market for restaurant stocks this year. The company told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it hopes to raise as much as $58 million in the stock offering. Fresh Enterprises has 157 company-owned and franchise-operated restaurants nationwide, with more than half in California.