Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Disclosure: I sold Tucows shares

Kevin Murphy, May 21, 2021, 12:34:40 (UTC), Gossip

TL;DR — I made about $3,700 selling Tucows shares.

I’ve never been much of an investor in anything, largely because I’ve never really had the disposable income. However, back in 2006, when I lived in the US, I opened an online share-trading account and bought around $1,000 worth of shares in various technology companies.

The companies included what at the time I considered safe bets: Dell, AMD, Yahoo! and Adobe. Everyone still uses Yahoo, right?

But I also bought 50 shares of Tucows, the domain name registrar, for $3.75 a pop. I recall being inspired by a post from original ICANN blogger Bret Fausett, who coincidentally now works for Tucows, in which he touted the stock.

I left the US at the end of 2007 and went travelling for a while before returning to the UK.

At some point in 2009, when I tried to sell up and close the account, I was told that because I no longer had the US bank account I signed up with, I would be unable to access the funds.

So I pretty much chalked the experience down to an idiot tax and forgot all about it.

In 2010 I launched this web site.

Recently, I remembered the account and, trading platform policies having changed in the meantime, discovered I probably would be able to access the funds after all.

That $1,000 had turned into over $19,000 over the intervening 15 years, and the Tucows position had grown by almost 2,000%, a gain of over $3,700.

I’ve sold all my shares and am in the process of closing the account. After that, I won’t own any shares in any companies.

In short, I’m probably going to make a few grand by selling Tucows stock that I’ve owned for the last 15 years but which, until recently, I thought I’d lost forever.

Make of that what you will.

I’m disclosing it now not because I think I’ve had any market-moving impact on the stock over the years, but because it just seems like the kind of thing that needs to be disclosed.

If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.

Tagged:

Comments (1)

  1. NetOperator Wibby says:
    May 31, 2021 at 2:58 am

    That’s awesome, kudos.

    Reply

Add Your Comment