The largest Internet domain name marketplace and monetization provider, Sedo, today announced that Bloomberg and Reuters have added IDNX, the industry’s leading domain price index, to the financial markets covered on their respective Web sites. This validates the economic relevance and investment potential of domain names, and makes the domain market more transparent for investors.

IDNX provides critical insight into the current market value of domains, domain industry trends, and the risk-return ratio of domains as a financial asset. Using real estate economic methodology to index more than 200,000 domain transactions since 2006, IDNX exhibits strong correlation with broader economic indicators, substantiating the long-held assumption that domains are as much an economic asset as real estate, stocks or shares.

“It is gratifying to see people realize that domains are a valid investment option,” said Thies Lindenthal, the MIT researcher and economist who created IDNX and serves as Product Manager for Pricing at Sedo.com. “Internet entrepreneurs and domain industry professionals have long recognized fluctuations in domain value that parallel the economy as a whole, but unlike most other markets, these changes were not being tracked. IDNX provides the insight needed to make educated investment decisions. I am thrilled that Wall Street is taking the virtual investment space seriously, and that they are looking to the domain market for insight.”

When compared to other financial indicators such as the NASDAQ or the stock price of internet giant Google, IDNX clearly shows that the trend lines for these indices follow the same path as the trend line for the domain market. Updated monthly, IDNX has shown consecutive growth over the past five months and reached historical highs in March 2012, indicating a full rebound from 2011’s financial crisis, and suggesting that the remainder of this year could see even stronger figures.

“This is the first index of ‘virtual real estate’ constructed using the same types of econometric techniques that have been pioneered for tracking prices of ‘real real estate’ and that work well in that context. I think this is a great next step into the new frontier!” said Professor David Geltner, Director of Research at MIT’s Center for Real Estate.

IDNX is currently available on Bloomberg and Reuters under IDNX <Index> and .IDNX, respectively. As with all indices featured on their sites, IDNX can only be viewed by those with valid Bloomberg or Reuters accounts. To view and interact with IDNX now, go to http://sedo.com/idnx.

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