The Internet Gets a Stock Index
Ok bubble prognosticators, start your engines: the Nasdaq stock market today announced the creation of a new index tracking only Internet companies, the NASDAQ Internet Index. The index (^QNET) will track a diverse range of companies covering "Internet access providers, Internet search engines, web hosting, website design, and Internet retail commerce."
"The NASDAQ Internet Index contains some of the most exciting Internet companies traded on NASDAQ and other U.S. exchanges," said NASDAQ Senior Vice President Steven Bloom in a press release. Bloom said the creation of the index was a logical step for Nasdaq, given their brand association with technology companies and large number of Internet companies listed on their stock exchange. Nasdaq hopes that the new index with be a "benchmark" for tracking the progress of the "the second generation Web" -- is that web 2.0?
However, we couldn't find any information about which companies are included in the Internet Index. It seems likely that large companies like Amazon, Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and eBay (all listed on Nasdaq) would be included on the list. But what about conglomerates like Time Warner or News Corp (who both trade on the NYSE) that have substantial Internet properties? If you have any information on this, please leave a note in the comments.
The NASDAQ Internet Index was up 2.18% on its first day.
Update: Thanks to Frank in the comments who linked to a post this morning on Trader Mike that lists of the components of the Internet Index. It's a pretty diverse list, and all the Internet heavy hitters we suspected -- Google, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay -- are present. Curiously absent, though, are sites like Microsoft and News Corp. who control some of the most popular properties on the Internet (MSN/Live and MySpace/FIM respectively). These companies many not be only Internet companies (but then, is Google just an Internet company anymore?), but their impact on the web is undeniably enormous.
Also of note is that the Index is international, including sits like Baidu and Sohu.
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Seems like a pretty sweet idea to me...I'll be interested to see how they handle the media conglomerates.
This is exactly what I was looking for. It's really nice to see NASDAQ not lumping in every internet company into the Technology Index.
Wow! Its a great news. Internet companies need to be looked separtly. But the way Internet companies are moving ahead,they are going to represent a convergence of technology, media and telecom.
This is a great idea, and I'm sure it will show some interesting results. Presumably companies who are not internet-based but who own large, important websites will be included but only based on what the internet branch of their company does?
Interesting list:
Components of the NASDAQ Internet Index
http://tradermike.net/2007/11/components_of_the_nasdaq_internet_index_qnet/
FYI, you can now download a spreadsheet of the stocks from the NASDAQ site:
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/index_component.asp?symbol=QNET
Here's that list, sorted by ticker symbol (don't know where I'd be w/o awk and sed), with links to Yahoo Finance for each stock:
http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/blogger/2007/11/nasdaq-internet-index-components-by.html
It's a sign of weakness. They know the Internet is a more efficient, more interesting, more open marketplace, which is swallowing up interest the stock market. Mindshare baby. The stock market is *leaking* down the Internet's drain.
Invest in the Internet, software, hardware, buy domains, build more websites, buy traffic, data!
Old technology gives way to new technology. Remember the ticker tape?