lol .. you aren't missing anything .. there isn't too much obvious logic behind it.
@Avtar629 summed it up nicely with "China" .. lol .. with China there are also a few reasons ...
Do a search for "Chip" or "Chips" here at NP and you'll find a ton of info.
(CHIP is short for CHInese Premium)
1- First of all there are weird P2P loans we don't really see in the west .. short domains are/were accepted as collateral on these loans .. I think this was possibly a factor in the China domain bubble in 2015. A reason for this is because the shorter domains are relatively limited in numbers .. as such are legitimately considered a rare commodity.
2- But other important factors is that the Chinese language doesn't lend well to the ASCII based character set domains were normally based on, as such Chinese companies would use letter and even number combinations that phonetically sound like Chinese words.
3- In terms of the numerics, Chinese culture is strongly centered on numbers and patterns, etc
4- There are some language laws in China that restrict non-chinese words usage in domains .. so if you name a website as a number, you still have a way of finding a name your international clients can understand without breaking the law. (I'm really unsure about this one)
5- Then you also have speculation .. not just by Chinese .. but Western domain speculators who don't fully understand it all but saw the prices climbing super high super fast and so they registered a bunch of random stuff hoping to get lucky with combinations.
Add these factors together and it makes for a lot of weirdness that most of the West deems illogical.
Within the insanity there is some order .. for example, in terms of numerics, Chinese like 8 and 3, while really dislike 4 and to a lesser extent 0. While in letters, very few (if any) words start with vowels or a V, so short 4L "acronym" domains with 4, 0, A, E, I, O, U or V's significantly hurt the value (they are considered non-Chips).
One factor that ups the value is if the domain contains a "Pinyin" .. essentially a romanization (~ ASCII) of Chinese words. For example BJ = Bejing .. so BJCCC would be good for a company in Bejing with the acronym CCC as their name. There is "Pinyin" equivalency for most Chinese words and cities.
A LOT of the more speculative short domains bought en mass in late 2015 have been dropping like flies. For the first time ever Verisign (who run .com and .net) have reported a drop in the number of their overall domains because of these dropping Chips that were not renewed.
These domains do have a "liquid" minimum value, so while they are speculative, if you're careful AND the market is stable, the resell value of your domain will always be a certain minimum (although that minimum varies with the market).
So there are 2 possible plays with these domains (and the combination):
1- Some play them like the stock market .. hoping to buy low and sell high based on the liquid market value fluctuations.
2- Some buy these (particularly 4N) because they see their cost of acquisition vs potential loss makes them worth holding longer term in the hopes of making a large profit selling the 4N to an end user at full retail price.
There is some value in most of the remaining domains .. but I'm personally not sure their value are worth the investment. Your best bet is finding such domains that also have value for the west .. but even then ... your costs will be something to watch out for.
In terms of 5L's .. some can be grouped in with the China stuff (mostly the stuff you can't pronounce) .. however there are some that people register specifically for western Companies .. essentially a made up word to name a company (because all real dictionary 5 letter words would cost waaaay too much). A good example of such a domain from a made up word is the one I use for my username Ategy (although I argue it's a cool derivative of strATEGY .. lol)! These "Brandables" are popular with domainers (not sure how much they actually sell unless they are on Brandbuckets).
At the end of the day if you want to invest in these .. definitely read read read .. I don't usually touch these domains unless the domain has what I see/understand as value in the west beyond random letters (doesn't have to be a real world .. but should make sense .. ei "4x20", "ahdio" or "dotr" etc ..
Everything I've mentioned are based on things I've read or heard .. nothing first hand .. so definitely don't take it as fact .. do your own research (and let me know if you find anything different.
