Domain name related stocks suffer through August

Domain name related stocks have had a rough August. During the month to date, each of the publicly traded companies with significant exposure to the space suffered double digit percentage declines.

Here is a summary of the month to date performance for Marchex (MCHX), Tucows (TCX), Interseach Global (IGO), and Communicate.com (CMNN.OB).

Stock	Aug 1	Aug 30	Change
MCHX	13.44	8.94	-33.50%
TCX	1.24	0.97	-21.80%
IGO	2.6	1.65	-13.20%
CMNN.OB	2.6	2.24	-13.80%

Marchex has a portfolio of over 200,000 domain names. They are currently using the domain names as part of platform for targeted advertising and search marketing. Previous post is here.

Tucows is a wholesale domain registrar as well as the owner of a large portfolio of domain names, notably including the world's most extensive collection of surname domain names. Previous post is here.

Intersearch Global is the owner of domain names such as banks.com, look.com, and irs.com. They have used these domain names to create industry specific destination portals.

Communicate.com is the owner of domain names such as boxing.com, perfume.com, and importers.com. They are shifting towards developing their domain names into retail or business websites. Previous post is here.

The dismal performance of these stocks is ironic against the backdrop of recent headline grabbing domain name related news. Dictionary.com recently sold for $100 million. The company built around Business.com sold for $360 million. The company built around Creditcards.com recently filed for an IPO to raise up to $115 million.

So what's the deal?

Are the current slate of publicly traded domain name related companies not using their assets to the fullest potential? Or is the market not recognizing the underlying value of the domain names held by each company?


Disclosure: I am long TCX