Analyst
rating lifts Cheap
Tickets’ shares

The Hawaii-based company's
stock jumps nearly 14%

Star-Bulletin staff

An analyst's recommendation helped boost the shares of Cheap Tickets Inc. nearly 14 percent today.

Analyst Mitchell Bartlett of the Minneapolis investment firm Dain Rauscher Wessels rated Cheap Tickets as a "strong buy" in a report yesterday. His firm was one of the two underwriters that handled the initial public offering of Honolulu-based Cheap Tickets last month.

That firm and the other underwriter, William Blair & Co., had priced the stock at $15 a share when it was first issued but once the public had a chance at it on March 19 it sold for $31 a share.

The stock has had its ups and downs since then, but has risen 50 percent since Wednesday.

On Wall Street today, the stock rose $5.50 to a record close of $45. In intraday trading, the stock reached a high of $47.12, about 19 percent above yesterday's close, according to Bloomberg News.

The company, which trades on the Nasdaq national market, has contracts with airlines to buy their unsold seats at substantial discounts and resell them through ticket offices on the mainland and in Hawaii as well as through the Internet.

Cheap Tickets last year had ticket sales of $160 million and earned $11 million in commissions.