Marchex stock on a tear.
Owners of Marchex stock in recent years haven’t had a lot to cheer about.
The company, perhaps best known in domain name circles for buying Yun Ye’s domain name portfolio for $164 million, has traded at over $20 per share within the past five years. But more recently it has also traded as low as $2.98.
Yet the tide has turned in recent months. The stock closed today at $9.50, a 133% improvement over its September 1 opening price.
One of the company’s biggest challenges is its convoluted financials, which must be twisted and manipulated into pro formas to look pretty. It isn’t easy to understand. It also lost a significant chunk of revenue when Yahoo terminated its Search Submit product. Marchex sold $7.5 million worth of the product in 2009, although it says its margins were low.
What are your thoughts on Marchex’s prospects?
Bill Roy says
Marchex may well be turning the corner after the disaters of the past few years, including the Zip code websites debacle, loss of revenue from Search Submit, etc..
The question will of course be ‘who’ is buying the stock, and just as important ‘why’ are they buying the stock? If the stock is being purchased by either one company or an individual (or a group acting together as one entity) it could be that a possible takeover of the company is in the offing. As it is I would imagine the management are both relieved and anxious about the turn-around in stock price – unless of course they are aware of buy-out/takeover discussions that we are not privy to.
Jeff Schneider says
Hello Andrew,
Our whole industry is going to get the catalyst for web development growth that it needs.Coming soon the first Major,of many, “Web Business Configurators™”JAS.The street senses the dead ahead Web Business creation psunami.Thank You for this post!
Gratefully Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)