Stock markets fall, Covid-19 and the economy — Cloudfest canceled
Event cancellations, supply chain disruptions, and travel restrictions are hitting the economy. Will they hit domains?
The organizers of NamesCon hold a big cloud-industry event every March called Cloudfest. It attracts 7,000 people to Germany from around the cloud industry ecosystem.
This year’s event, which was slated for just a few weeks from now, has been canceled due to concerns over the Covid-19 coronavirus. It’s a big financial and personal blow to the team that spends all year planning for this event. It’s also a blow for the economy, especially where the event was to be held.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s a modest event. Big for the industry but modest for the world. But many other events have been canceled. Mobile World Congress was by now canceled this year. It attracts over 100,000 people to Barcelona. Once the big firms pulled out, organizers had little choice but to cancel the event.
Think regarding the ripple effects on airlines, hotels, Airbnbs, and restaurants. It’s a major hit on the economy.
It’s proof that, whether or not Covid-19 is contained in a timely manner, the worldwide economy is being shocked. That’s why we’ve seen stock markets fall by 15% since February 12.
When markets falter, some people in the domain name business come under pressure. Their non-domain businesses might be impacted. Maybe they got a margin call on stocks.
Most importantly, people are uncertain. And uncertainty isn’t good for any market.
It will be interesting to see what sort of impact this has on the domain name industry. We might see a few distressed sellers. A few take a breather from expired domain auctions. A few people let off the gas.
What do you think?
