Tag: SNAP

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)

 

Want to Invest in Tesla Convertible Bonds? Good Luck!

by Fred Fuld III

A convertible bond is a bond that can be converted into a fixed number of shares of stock in the company that issued the bond.

The advantages of convertible bonds

  1. It pays a fixed income, unlike a stock which can lower or eliminate a dividend.
  2. If the company goes out of business, the bondholders get paid off before the stockholders.
  3. The bond has growth potential because of the conversion factor into shares of stock.

The disadvantages of convertible bonds

  1. They are illiquid, with most not traded on any exchange.
  2. They are hard to find and not all brokers carry them.

Companies that issue convertible bonds

  • Tesla (TSLA)
  • Nio (NIO)
  • Zillow Group (Z)
  • Square (SQ)
  • Snap (SNAP)
  • Microchip Technology (MCHP)

Now try going to your broker’s website or try calling them and ask what the quote is on the Tesla 2% convertible bond. Good luck.

Convertible Bond ETFs

The easier way to invest in convertibles is through an an exchange traded fund that specializes in convertible bonds, such as the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays Convertible Securities ETF (CWB), which actually owns bonds from such companies as Tesla and Nio. It is up over 50% for the last twelve months. This ETF pays a yield of 2.34%.

Another convertible bond ETF is iShares Convertible Bond ETF (ICVT), which in addition to owning Tesla bonds, owns convertible bonds in Southwest Airlines (LUV), DISH Network (DISH), and Snap. For the last twelve months, it has increased by 58%.

First Trust SSI Strategic Convertible Securities ETF (FCVT) is a third option. The ETF owns Tesla, Zillow and Square convertible bonds, among others. This ETF is up over 52% over the last twelve months.

If you decide to get into convertibles, let’s hope they can convert your portfolio into profits.

Disclosure: Author owns Tesla.