With 2016 practically at the half way mark, now might be a good time to do a quick inventory of your portfolio. It's also a good time to reflect on what your goals were for these names and if that has changed. There are internal factors such as your family, budgetary conditions, employment, etc... There are also external factors such as markets changing in the liquid categories, the price of cryptocurrencies and how they factor into the speculative nature of domain investors. For example some feel a rise in Bitcoin changed the sentiment of some Chinese investors to move back to BTC from the speculation in short domains.
Other external factors include the big upcoming renewal bills for the frenzy that took place in 4L,5N,6N,7N,8N.everything. One needs to decide if they want to try to cash out before everyone rushes to the exits. In domaining rushing to the exits is not just everyone selling like they do with a stock. Dropping a ton of domains brings about the same results. If someone who would normally bid on your domains knows the buyout is breaking or that there will be a ton of supply, they are not bidding even nominal amounts.
Take a look at the LLNN.com thread here, what was once quite vibrant with charts and sales reported almost daily turned quiet quickly. The LLNN.com niche may come back and there will be some outlier sales along the way. Full disclosure, I own a few, bought them cheap and I am not worried about holding them. I own less than 10 so renewal is not a problem. Some stocked up and have found trying to liquidate at wholesale here on Namepros has not been what they hoped.
So now one has to make a decision whether to sell for whatever they can get, not wholesale but salvage rate. Does one try to find ways to market them to Chinese buyers ? Namepros member @Kassey Lee wrote they are appealing to end users in China. These are individual choices and there is no right answer. It comes down to your budget and your gut instinct on whether or not you can make money with this niche.
The above example applies to many of the China short domain niches. Some people may have extended themselves too far when it came to Chips. They bought names that were great to the left of the dot, but in extensions the Chinese don't invest in. These country codes and new tlds generally have higher renewal rates. These rates may make renewing almost impossible at the risk of destroying their entire portfolio.
These exotic extensions need the price of .com names to be super strong to even have a chance of making any fraction of the upward gain in .com.
You don't get alerts when big investors sell
The beginning of a trend is always exciting, talks of buyouts and "who bought how many thousand ?" Gets the juices flowing, it is like a gambler on a roll at the craps table, at the craps table the croupier always lets you know when the shooter crapped out. In domaining it does not work that way usually. People who once talked about buying every single name in a niche just fade away. You don't get a Google alert. So you need to keep on top of everything daily and fortunately there are a lot of good members here who post what they are seeing in a specific niche. One of the best things about the Dot TV sub forum many years ago, was we had so many people updating everything from pricing to usage to sales that people could just check in and get the whole story. When interest on a grand scale fades that info and those postings fade away.
If you were here when the 5L.com train started moving it was pretty crazy, now you can buy whatever seat you like on that train, hell you might be able to just buy the whole train.
James Iles, who posts a lot of quality stuff here at Namepros, remarked:
I have a theory that the large investors who own thousands of riskier names (5Ls, 6Ns etc) will work together to pump/hype prices around 3 months before renewals are due.
For 6Ns, this would put it at June/July. For 5Ls, July/August or later.
Only a theory, based on no firm facts but if investors know they're facing renewal fees of $1m+, the majority may opt to pump rather than renew.
James might very well be right, if he is right then that may help some to tune their portfolio accordingly.
So take some time to reassess both your portfolio and your goals. Maybe you want to double down or maybe you want to reallocate in a new direction. Take your time, don't jump to a decision but make sure you understand the time frames of certain external factors as they may cause you to miss an opportunity.
Other external factors include the big upcoming renewal bills for the frenzy that took place in 4L,5N,6N,7N,8N.everything. One needs to decide if they want to try to cash out before everyone rushes to the exits. In domaining rushing to the exits is not just everyone selling like they do with a stock. Dropping a ton of domains brings about the same results. If someone who would normally bid on your domains knows the buyout is breaking or that there will be a ton of supply, they are not bidding even nominal amounts.
Take a look at the LLNN.com thread here, what was once quite vibrant with charts and sales reported almost daily turned quiet quickly. The LLNN.com niche may come back and there will be some outlier sales along the way. Full disclosure, I own a few, bought them cheap and I am not worried about holding them. I own less than 10 so renewal is not a problem. Some stocked up and have found trying to liquidate at wholesale here on Namepros has not been what they hoped.
So now one has to make a decision whether to sell for whatever they can get, not wholesale but salvage rate. Does one try to find ways to market them to Chinese buyers ? Namepros member @Kassey Lee wrote they are appealing to end users in China. These are individual choices and there is no right answer. It comes down to your budget and your gut instinct on whether or not you can make money with this niche.
The above example applies to many of the China short domain niches. Some people may have extended themselves too far when it came to Chips. They bought names that were great to the left of the dot, but in extensions the Chinese don't invest in. These country codes and new tlds generally have higher renewal rates. These rates may make renewing almost impossible at the risk of destroying their entire portfolio.
These exotic extensions need the price of .com names to be super strong to even have a chance of making any fraction of the upward gain in .com.
You don't get alerts when big investors sell
The beginning of a trend is always exciting, talks of buyouts and "who bought how many thousand ?" Gets the juices flowing, it is like a gambler on a roll at the craps table, at the craps table the croupier always lets you know when the shooter crapped out. In domaining it does not work that way usually. People who once talked about buying every single name in a niche just fade away. You don't get a Google alert. So you need to keep on top of everything daily and fortunately there are a lot of good members here who post what they are seeing in a specific niche. One of the best things about the Dot TV sub forum many years ago, was we had so many people updating everything from pricing to usage to sales that people could just check in and get the whole story. When interest on a grand scale fades that info and those postings fade away.
If you were here when the 5L.com train started moving it was pretty crazy, now you can buy whatever seat you like on that train, hell you might be able to just buy the whole train.
James Iles, who posts a lot of quality stuff here at Namepros, remarked:
I have a theory that the large investors who own thousands of riskier names (5Ls, 6Ns etc) will work together to pump/hype prices around 3 months before renewals are due.
For 6Ns, this would put it at June/July. For 5Ls, July/August or later.
Only a theory, based on no firm facts but if investors know they're facing renewal fees of $1m+, the majority may opt to pump rather than renew.
James might very well be right, if he is right then that may help some to tune their portfolio accordingly.
So take some time to reassess both your portfolio and your goals. Maybe you want to double down or maybe you want to reallocate in a new direction. Take your time, don't jump to a decision but make sure you understand the time frames of certain external factors as they may cause you to miss an opportunity.
