The online reservation service doesn't deserve its $1.5 billion valuation, at least not yet. But neither does it deserve to be written off as an over-hyped fad.
By Kevin Kelleher, contributor
Tuesday marked another ho-hum milestone for OpenTable: The stock closed at yet another record high.
In the 20 months since its IPO, OpenTable (OPEN) has more than tripled its $20 offering price to Tuesday's close of $66.33. The 12-year-old company has amassed a $1.5 billion market cap, bigger than many publicly-traded restaurant chains like Jack in the Box (JACK), Domino's Pizza (DPZ), P.F. Chang's (PFCB), and it's closing in fast on Wendy's (WEN) $1.8 million market value.
What's going on? Has the company, which books restaurant reservations online, hit on some kind of secret sauce for success? Or is it 1999 all over again, as some analysts speculate, with little-known online enterprises achieving stratospheric valuations before crashing back to earth? More
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Citigroup Inc | 32.36 | -1.00 | -3.00% |
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| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
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| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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