Stocks are faring in 2020 — How domain
Endurance leads the way following buyout.
It’s been a wild ride in the stock market this year. On March 14, I wrote regarding how domain name stocks fared during the pandemic market crash up through the close on March 13. I wrote an update in May regarding how shares had rebounded with the market.
Fast forward to now: The NASDAQ is up 29% for the year, the S&P 500 up 7%, and the Dow is down 2%.
Domain stocks ought to probably be compared to the tech-heavy NASDAQ.
Here’s a look at how domain stocks have fared this year. Data is based on the closing price on December 31, 2019 and November 4, 2020.
Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN): Verisign is up 6% for the year, closing at $203.39 yesterday. The firm is seeing a nice uptick in domain registrations as businesses move online during the pandemic. The market is likely also pricing in 7% annual price hikes for the next four years, with the first kicking in ahead of October 2021.
Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): Shares in the firm that owns Enom have increased 23% this year. The market cheered when Tucows divested its lagging mobile phone business.
GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY): Ahead of announcing earnings yesterday evening, shares were up 17% for the year. The stock is getting hit today.
Endurance (NASDAQ: EIGI): An buyout by Clearlake Capital values shares at $9.50 each. They’re right now trading at $9.36, nearly double their closing price on December 31, 2019.
CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC): CentralNic continues its buyout binge, moving heavily into online advertising. Shares are down 15% for the year.
MMX (London AIM: MMX): An accounting scandal at this top level domain firm has pushed shares lower in recent weeks. Shares are down 37% so far this year.
NameSilo (OTC: URLOF): Thinly traded NameSilo is having a rough year on the market. The OTC stock is off 55%.
Clarivate (NYSE: CCC): I didn’t include Clarivate in my analyses earlier this year since domains are just a modest part of what it does (it owns MarkMonitor). But it has had a great year on the market; shares are up 80%!
I do not own individual shares in publicly-traded domain name firms to avoid a conflict of interest. Mutual funds I own, counting index funds, do hold some of these stocks.
