• by March 5, 2001

The Internet ratings report for the week ending February 25 from Nielsen//NetRatings shows that four of the top 10 stickiest sites at home this past week were stock-related financial sites. "Stickiest" refers to the amount of time a website is able to keep its visitors continually surfing. Raging Bull - http://ragingbull.lycos.com - led the way among financial sites with its 138,000 unique visitors spending an hour and 18 minutes surfing the site from home.

Traffic to TDWaterhouse.com totaled 155,000 unique visitors who spent an average of 46 minutes on the site, while Schwab.com's 324,000 unique visitors spent more than 40 minutes on the site. Datek.com attracted 153,000 unique visitors, who spent an average of 33 minutes on the site.

"During the current financial market's changing times, investor information becomes vital to the broad range of investors tracking their investments," said Allen Weiner, VP of analytical services at NetRatings. "Those sites able to meet the needs of this important market segment with timely and thorough information will wind up with legions of loyal, sticky users." The stickiest site on the web right now, according to NetRatings, is bingo.com with 137,946 visitors, each spending an average of 1 hour and 18 minutes on the site.

Top Ten Sticky list also included pogo.com, web3000.com, blackplanet.com, flyswat.com and ebay.com, which came in 10th with 6,601,163 unique visitors each spending an average of 33 minutes on the site.