Tag: GOOGL

Who Owns the One Letter Domain Names?

by Fred Fuld III

Domain names have become a hot investment over the last 20 years, with several selling for over a million dollars. In case you are not familiar with them, domain names are, in very simple terms, the website address. For example apple.com, facebook.com, and google.com are all domain names. The most common ones end in .com but some end in .net, .org. .biz, .co, and other top level domains.

Did you ever wonder who owns a.com, b.com, or c.com. There are only twenty six letter domains that are even possible, but getting those one letter domains is even more difficult to get than one letter stock ticker symbols.

To start with, the dot com letters ‘a’ through ‘p’, ‘r’ through ‘w’, and the letter ‘y’ are all controlled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, also known as the IANA, the organization which oversees the allocation of IP addresses and domain names.

In case you were wondering about the zero dot com through 9.com domains, they are controlled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

Some companies were lucky enough to register one letter dot com domains before December 1, 1993 (or buy them from someone who registered them by that date), as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority put a restriction on single character domains at that time.

But there are still a few that are owned by companies.

a.co is owned by Amazon (AMZN).

g.co is owned by Google (GOOG)

s.co is owned by Snapchat (SNAP)

o.co and o.info are both owned by Overstock.com (OSTK).

0.co (that’s a zero dot co) is owned by Overstock.com (OSTK).

0.info (that’s a zero dot info) is also owned by Overstock.com (OSTK).

q.com is being used by Quantum Fiber.

t.co is owned by Twitter (TWTR).

x.com has been owned by x.commerce, which was developed by eBay (EBAY). Current ownership shows up as being private.

x.co has been owned by GoDaddy to be used as a URL shortener..

y.co is owned by XBN Ltd., formerly YCO Group, a luxury yacht company, which is a subsidiary of Fifty Four Four Ltd..

z.com used to be owned by Nissan North America Inc., which is owned by Nissan Motor (NSANY), which trades on NASDAQ. It is now owned by GMO Internet, Inc. (GMOYF), a Japan based Internet services company which trades on the Tokyo exchange and the US OTC Market.

i.net is owned by Future Media Architects, a privately held company based in the British Virgin Islands.

c.tv, h.tv, k.tv, l.tv, o.tv, q.tv, s.tv, t.tv, w.tv, y.tv, and z.tv are also owned by Future Media Architects.

d.tv has been owned by Worldwide Media, Inc. publisher of  TheDomains.com.

u.tv is owned by ITV plc (ITVPY), a British media company. The company trades on the London Stock Exchange and the US OTC Market.

Want to know what companies have one letter stock ticker symbols? Here they are:

Agilent Technologies Inc. (A)

Barnes Group Inc. (B)

Citigroup, Inc. (C) formerly the symbol for Chrysler

Dominion Energy, Inc. (D)

Eni SpA (E)

Ford Motor Co. (F)

Genpact Ltd. (G) formerly the symbol for Gillette

Hyatt Hotels (H)

Jacobs Engineering (J)

Kellogg Company (K)

Loews Corporation (L)

Macy’s, Inc. (M)

Realty Income Corp. (O)

Ryder System, Inc. (R)

SentinelOne (S) formerly the symbol for Sprint Nextel Corp. and formerly the symbol for Sears Roebuck

AT&T, Inc. (T)

Unity Software (U)

Visa, Inc. (V)

Wayfair (W)

United States Steel Corp. (X)

Alleghany Corp. (Y)

Zillow (Z) formerly the symbol for Woolworth, now known as Foot Locker (FL)

 

Online Meeting & Video Conferencing Stocks that Should Benefit from the Corona Virus

by Fred Fuld III

Businesses across the country have been changing their travel policies. Over the last several years, many companies with diverse geographical footprints have moved towards video conferencing instead of meetings in person, in order to save on travel, hotel, and car rental costs.

Now companies are stepping up their online meetings for the health and safety of their employees, due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

There are several companies that will benefit from this massive change in how company employees interact with other employees, vendors, customers, suppliers, and others.

One example is Cisco Systems (CSCO), the large hardware and software network company. The company owns the web conferencing applications WebEx and Jabber. However, these divisions are only a small part of Cisco’s business. In the last month, the stock has dropped by over 22%. It trades at 13.5 times trailing earnings, and pays a dividend yield of 3.9%.

In terms of the purer plays, there are a couple stocks to choose from. LogMeIn (LOGM) is a collaboration service company that owns the popular GoToMeeting product, along with Join.me. However, the company has agreed to be acquired for $4.3 billion by the private equity companies Francisco Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Corp., with the closing taking place sometime this year.

Then there is Zoom Video Communications (ZM), the remote conferencing company which offers its Zoom conferencing product. The company is generating earnings but has a nosebleed high forward price to earnings ratio of 256.

Other companies in this industry are similar to Cisco, in that the video conferencing makes up a small portion of their business. These include Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google Hangouts, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Skype and Teams, Adobe (ADBE) Connect, and RingCentral (RNG).

Let’s hope the Coronavirus is eliminated quickly. But in the meantime, at least we have a way of communicating with each other without meeting in person.

Disclosure: Author owns MSFT.

How to Live Forever & the Stocks that will Benefit

Do you want to live forever? Many billionaires want to, or at least want to support the research into improving and extending the lives of people. Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft (MSFT) created the Allen Institute for Cell Science with $100 million, to develop treatments for diseases related to aging. Unfortunately, he passed away last year from septic shock caused by cancer.

Adam Neumann, the CEO of WeWork, has invested in the anti-aging company Life Biosciences. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal (PYPL), has donated money to the SENS Research Foundation, a longevity organization. Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) co-founder Sergey Brin has donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation and to the Parkinson’s Institute.

There are many companies involved in longevity through several different approaches, including medical devices, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and senior care facilities.

One company that fits into this category is Edwards Lifesciences (EW), a California based company involved in the production of products to treat heart disease. This $44.7 billion market cap company trades at 44 times trailing earnings and 35 times forward earnings. Earnings for the latest reported year were up 23.7% over the previous year.

Boston Scientific (BSX), a $60 billion market cap company, makes and markets an extensive array of cardiology products. The sock has a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 43 and a forward PE ratio of 24.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (VRTX) developer and markets treatments for cystic fibrosis. The stock trades at 21 times earnings.

Terumo Corporation (TRUMY), based in Japan, makes and markets numerous medical products, primarily for transfusion and cardiothoracic surgery. The stock has a PE ratio of 13.

All of the above, plus many other longevity related stocks make up the portfolio of the Global X Longevity Thematic ETF (LNGR), which has a portfolio of anti-aging stocks. It pays a small yield of 0.85%.

Hopefully some of these stocks will make your portfolio last a long time.

Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.

 

Are You Watching the Streaming Video Stocks?

by Fred Fuld III

Could you have imagined 15 years ago that you would have the ability to watch almost any movie or TV show whenever you want, as many times as you want, and could pause it and replay parts of it, without having to insert a disc into a player, would you have believed it?

Most major films and television programs can now be watched on your smart TV, you computer, your laptop, and even your phone. Several companies are benefiting from this major trend, providing investors with stocks that they should keep an eye on.

Amazon’s (AMZN) Prime Video is an Internet video on demand service that offers television shows and films for rent or purchase and Prime Video, a group of Amazon Studios original content and licensed acquisitions including Bosch, The Man in the High Castle, Sneaky Pete, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Amazon trades at 64 times forward earnings, and revenues for the latest reported quarter jumped by almost 20% year-over-year.

Netflix (NFLX) is the biggest pure play in this arena, having around 140 million subscribers. The company also has extensive original programming including stand-up comedy specials. The stock trades at 88 times forward earnings. Sales for the latest quarter went up by over 27%.

Streaming video is a small but growing piece of Disney (DIS) which owns 60% of Hulu, in addition to its own streaming services. Like Netflix and Amazon, Hulu has its own original content. Disney has a very reasonable forward price to earnings ratio of 16, and even pays a dividend of 1.53%.

Of course, video streaming is a small part of a lot of large companies, such as Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), and YouTube, owned by Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), better known as Google.

Let’s watch and see which company will be the best performer.

Disclosure: Author owns AMZN, AAPL, and DIS.