Double Take for DoubleClick

Treating shareholder heartstrings as if they were yo-yo threads, DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) is guiding its fourth-quarter targets higher after talking down those very same numbers a little more than two months ago.

Last night, the online advertising specialist told the market that it would ultimately be reporting revenue between $81 million and $82 million for last year's final quarter. Back in October, that target was dropped to a range of $72 million to $77 million. Earnings that the company figured would come in no better than $0.04 per share are now being raised to $0.06 or $0.07 a stub.

The welcome reversal raises the ultimate question: Is DoubleClick still for sale? Back in November, the company hooked up with investment firm Lazard Freres & Co. to explore a sale. Since then, the company's fundamentals have bounced back, investors are pushing shares of online advertising bellwethers Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) higher, and Fastclick has filed to go public.

While all this would naturally make DoubleClick an attractive trophy wife, the same can be said for the asking price. The stock has risen by 20% over the past two months and, while a desperate DoubleClick may have been ready to take any reasonable offer back in November, it would likely hold out for a meaty premium these days.

How attractive is DoubleClick? It's packing quite the dowry, with half of the company's share price backed by cash and short-term investments. While Yahoo! Overture and Google's AdWords offerings have cut into the graphic banner and affiliate program -- joining DoubleClick and ValueClick (Nasdaq: VCLK) in using effective and unobtrusive contextual text ads -- it's still an expanding pie. DoubleClick's brisk turnaround bears that out. So call off the bachelorette party. DoubleClick's better off alone.

For related Foolishness:

• The Next Dot-Com IPO
• DoubleClick Waves the White Flag

Do you find online advertising a nuisance, or is it the price one expects to pay to subsidize free content? Are you a webmaster with a preference for graphic ads over contextual text? All this and more -- in the Webmaster's Corner discussion board. Only on Fool.com.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has been a vocal fan of online advertising specialists for some time, but he does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. He is a member of the Rule Breakers analytical team, seeking out tomorrow's great growth stocks a day early.