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When the dust settles over the recent dramatic upsurge in the value of biotechnology stocks -- with the price of shares in some companies increasing three- or fourfold within a few weeks -- a key role in triggering the goldrush could be credited to a US investment website visited regularly by many thousands of small investors.

The most dramatic news has come from Celera Genomics of Rockville, Maryland (see above). The company's announcement on Monday that it has compiled sequence data from its own and publicly funded efforts covering 90 per cent of the human genome sent its stock soaring, at one point reaching a value of $258, compared with $186 the previous Friday.

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On the up and up: Celera's share price has taken off dramatically in recent weeks.

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Shares in other genomics and biotechnology companies received a parallel boost from the news, with the Nasdaq Biotech Index rising by 7.6 per cent. The value of shares in companies with a direct involvement in genomics has skyrocketed in recent weeks (see Nature 403 , 4; 1999).

Stock analysts point to several recent announcements to help explain this surge of interest, including the public sequencing of the one-billionth human nucleotide pair (see Nature 402, 331; 1999) and the publication of the complete sequence of chromosome 22 (see Nature 402, 447; 1999).

Equally significant appears to have been an announcement nine days before Christmas by the managers of a website known irreverently as The Motley Fool (TMF) that they had decided to purchase $50,000 of shares in Celera Genomics to add to their portfolio of 'rule breaker' companies.

The impact of the announcement, coming from a group of investors who had been among the first to spot key Internet stocks such as America OnLine -- whose shares, purchased in 1994 at 46 cents, are now worth more than $70 -- was electric. While the number of shares purchased in Celera had previously been running at about 150,000 a day, this was multiplied overnight by a factor of more than ten.

The explosion in demand was rapidly reflected in the price of Celera stock. Having hovered around $40 for much of the autumn, it had been growing steadily to reach a value of $72 by 16 December, the day of the TMF announcement.

Within three trading days the value of the shares had shot up to $125, and this momentum was maintained in the days to come. The shares reached a high for the year of $193 on 30 December; the previous August, they had been down to $22.

After dropping slightly as a result of profit-taking in the days immediately after the Christmas break, the shares took off again, defying predictions that the pre-Christmas increase in value would be short-lived. Last Friday, trading in Celera stock was halted when the company announced plans for its Monday press conference.

Analysts say that many of those who have been buying up genomics stocks at such speed seem to be individuals who have already profited from the recent growth in the value of Internet stocks, and have been attracted to genomics because of the similarities between the two fields.

"People have been saying that biotechnology is like the Internet, but until recently the stock has been much cheaper," says Genghis Lloyd-Davies of Credit Suisse First Boston.

Managers at TMF reflect this new-found enthusiasm. The decision to invest heavily in Celera was taken after assessing the extent to which the company fitted the strict criteria they have laid down for the selection of 'rule breaker' stock.

One of these, as described in a statement explaining the investment last month, was the fact that Celera appeared to be the dominant company in a rapidly growing area of commercial significance. "Celera has more 'momentum' -- more speed -- than any other company that we've ever bought," said the statement.

TMF managers acknowledge that their decision to invest in Celera reflects a long-term commitment. Dave Gardner, one of the founders of the website says: "We believe that in this coming century more value will be created in biotechnology than in any other technology."