`RUGRATS,' WEB SITE GIVE LIFT TO THQ.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

Stock of THQ Inc. surged more than 20 percent this week on Wall Street's enthusiasm for its ``Rugrats'' games and an upgraded Web site that includes an online store.

Shares of THQ posted successive gains of $2.125, $1.5625 and $1.375 to close Wednesday at $29.50 for a cumulative gain of $5.0625. The stock is now trading at nearly triple its of level three months ago.

The Calabasas-based video-game producer benefited from fortuitous timing on two fronts this week. On Monday and Tuesday, it announced the launch of its Nintendo Game Boy and Sony PlayStation versions of ``Rugrats'' games on the heels of the surprising success of the movie, which dominated the weekend's domestic box office with a $27.3 million opening.

It also received a boost Wednesday from ongoing frenzy over companies involved with retailing via the Internet. THQ shares rose 4.9 percent during that session after the company announced improvements to its www.thq.com site such as a live chat room, video previews of upcoming games and a THQ stock ticker updated every 20 minutes.

Analyst Tony Gikas of Piper Jaffray, which began coverage of THQ in September with a ``strong buy,'' said impressive sales of the ``WCW vs. NWO: Revenge'' video games have also helped push up the stock price this fall. He noted that the title recently achieved a 27 percent share among the top 50 titles for Nintendo 64.

THQ's price hit a 1998 low of $11.0625 at the end of August as bearish sentiment overtook Wall Street, then began to rise after ``buy'' ratings from three analysts, a better-than-expected third-quarter earnings report and a steady stream of new products such as ``Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling,'' ``BASS Masters Classic,'' ``Small Soldiers'' and ``Mulan.''

Analyst Stewart Halpern of ING Barings Furman Selz repeated his ``strong buy'' rating this week with a 12-month price target of $36.

Halpern has forecast THQ will sell 450,000 copies of ``Rugrats'' to PlayStation customers by the end of the year along with 170,000 Game Boy units, leading to a 13 percent gain in fourth-quarter per-share earnings to 63 cents.

If THQ can sell 1 million PlayStation ``Rugrats'' games, fourth-quarter profits would be 85 cents a share, but Halpern noted that's unlikely because only one in six of the Sony gaming platform owners are under 12 - the target audience for ``Rugrats.''

However, Halpern said he doubted THQ stock will see any significant gains as a result of expanding its Web capabilities.

``What they're doing is part of the transformation we're seeing of corporate sites that serve as billboards into destinations supporting a company's products and messages, but I don't think it's their intent to generate an Internet sizzle for the stock,'' he explained. ``The company is becoming popular because it has consistently out-performed expectations on Wall Street.''

Gikas agreed, saying, ``It's a good move for THQ to lessen its dependence on retail outlets, but it's not real material.''

Calabasas-based THQ reported last month third-quarter profits of $2.43 million, or 21 cents a share, a gain of 70 percent over the 1997 quarter, on a 59 percent rise in sales to $25.96 million.

Shares of companies selling goods on the Web continued to rise Wednesday as investors gambled on strong prospects for holiday shopping online.