GoDaddy and NameSilo gained; Team Internet Group and Tucows faced headwinds.

With 2024 in the books, here’s a look at how domain name stocks performed for the year. For reference, the NASDAQ was up nearly 29% for the year. NameSilo (OTC: URL.CN): NameSilo posted a 141% gain for the year as it continued to grow. Its over-the-counter shares didn’t increase quite as much as its Canadian shares, but they still more than doubled. GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY): GoDaddy was a big winner in 2024. Its stock shot up 86% from the close on December 29, 2023, to the close on December 31, 2024. Under pressure from activist investors, the company cut costs and focused on growing profit. Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN): Verisign was underwater for most of the year but eked out a half-percentage point gain in share price for the year. This is despite share buybacks; its market cap fell for the year. Sales of .com and .net domains fell, although the company made up for some of the drop with price increases. It isn’t allowed to increase .com prices for the next two years, so it will have to grow unit sales to increase revenue. Team Internet Group (London AIM: CNIC): Team Internet’s shares fell 25% as its online advertising business struggled and it absorbed a bad acquisition. It faced pressure in advertising arbitrage due to increasing traffic costs and decreasing revenue per visitor. Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): Shares in Tucows struggled for the year, falling 37% to close at $17.14. This has little to do with domain names and more to do with the cost of capital as it relates to the Ting fiber-to-the-home service. I do not own individual shares in publicly-traded domain name companies to avoid a conflict of interest. Mutual funds I own, including index funds, do hold some of these stocks. https://domainnamewire.com/2025/01/06/how-domain-name-stocks-performed-in-2024/