Domain firm market cap changes in 2016

Tucows’ value increased the most and Verisign’s fell the most.

I’ve done a lot of posts over the years tracking domain name firm’s stock prices. What’s up, what’s down, and by how much.

While looking at last year’s performance I decided to take a look beyond the stock price and consider the change in market capitalization. The market cap is the product of the number of shares outstanding and the price of the stock.

Market caps and stock prices don’t always move in lockstep. For example, if a firm buys back shares then the share price might go up (since each share represents a larger piece of the firm) but the value of the firm might not. Or, the market cap might drop more than the share price.

An example is Verisign. Last year its stock dropped 10.7%, but its market capitalization took an even bigger hit.

Here’s a look at U.S.-traded domain name stocks and how their market caps changed from December 31, 2015 to December 30, 2016. Data is from Stockrow.com.

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) Start $226 million, end $368 million, +63%
Neustar (NYSE: NSR) Start $1.27 billion, end $1.82 billion, +43%
GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) Start $5.0 billion, end $5.8 billion, +16%
Web.com (NASDAQ: WEB) Start $1.02 billion, end $1.08 billion, +6%
Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME) Start $158 million, end $161 million, +2%
Endurance International Group (NASDAQ: EIGI) Start $1.50 billion, end $1.32 billion, -12%
Verisign (NYSE: VRSN) Start $9.74 billion, end $7.95 billion, -18%