I decided to get off my lazy butt, after 3 months of non-posts, and check up on something. Some time ago I wrote a post about an “On-Demand Index”. This was a portfolio of On-Demand/SaaS stocks picked by Rick Sherman on SeekingAlpha.com. I created some AJAX scripts that took data from Google Finance for that portfolio and made it into a page on this blog. I thought, this way you can always go to that page and see overall how the SaaS stocks are doing in real-time.
Well, here I am, half a year later, trying to find out what happened to those stocks.
This is the original chart from June 29th 2008 that got me started:
This is the chart on January 1st 2009, from the On-Demand Index page:
| Company | Symbol | Return since Jan | Return last 1 year | Latest Price | 52 High | 52 Low | EPS | P/E | Market Cap |
| athenahealth, Inc. | ATHN | 1.32% | 8.54% | 36.08 | 39.29 | 19.19 | 0.30 | 118.56 | 1.20B |
| Blackboard, Inc. | BBBB | -5.15% | -27.17% | 25.41 | 45.00 | 19.36 | 0.13 | 199.39 | 796.66M |
| Concur Technologies, Inc. | CNQR | -26.03% | -32.19% | 24.69 | 50.00 | 19.52 | 0.35 | 69.91 | 1.21B |
| salesforce.com, Inc. | CRM | -21.78% | -48.55% | 26.61 | 75.21 | 20.82 | 0.30 | 89.61 | 3.25B |
| Constant Contact, Inc. | CTCT | 10.01% | -26.02% | 15.27 | 21.84 | 0.01 | -0.06 | - | 429.46M |
| DemandTec, Inc. | DMAN | -22.27% | -44.67% | 6.70 | 13.10 | 5.77 | -0.17 | - | 186.47M |
| Kenexa Corporation | KNXA | -10.78% | -62.05% | 6.79 | 24.01 | 4.68 | 0.94 | 7.24 | 153.18M |
| LoopNet, Inc. | LOOP | -6.07% | -56.35% | 6.50 | 15.48 | 4.75 | 0.52 | 12.56 | 222.78M |
| Netsuite Inc | N | -16.67% | -74.22% | 7.00 | 28.84 | 5.43 | -0.40 | - | 425.85M |
| Omniture, Inc. | OMTR | -17.51% | -66.58% | 9.09 | 28.00 | 7.15 | -0.55 | - | 662.94M |
| RightNow Technologies | RNOW | -30.48% | -50.47% | 5.84 | 17.39 | 5.02 | -0.34 | - | 195.66M |
| SuccessFactors, Inc. | SFSF | 16.64% | -26.04% | 6.73 | 15.00 | 4.61 | -1.64 | - | 377.61M |
| Salary.com, Inc. | SLRY | -32.95% | -81.37% | 1.77 | 11.00 | 1.40 | -1.32 | - | 29.09M |
| Taleo Corporation | TLEO | 5.24% | -61.7% | 8.43 | 26.16 | 5.37 | -0.08 | - | 258.04M |
| DealerTrack Holdings, Inc. | TRAK | -7.7% | -59.75% | 11.39 | 28.75 | 8.84 | 0.16 | 72.46 | 453.67M |
| The Ultimate Software Group | ULTI | -14.15% | -52.7% | 13.77 | 41.68 | 10.70 | 0.72 | 19.16 | 336.52M |
| Vocus, Inc. | VOCS | -19% | -48.86% | 15.26 | 41.50 | 12.90 | 0.31 | 48.50 | 290.29M |
| TOTAL | -11.61% | -47.66% |
Yikes! The return over the last year is -47%! The return since Jan 1 is -11%!
There is only ONE company on that list that has posted an increase in the past half year,
athenahealth (ATHN)
June 2008: 30.2
January 2009: 36.08
%: 19.47%
All the others are in the red, with an honourable mention going to
Salesforce.com (CRM)
June 2008: 68.6
January 2009: 26.61
%: -61.2%
Here’s a complete listing of the changes since June 2008:
| Company | Symbol | Jun-08 | Jan-09 | % |
| athenahealth, Inc. | ATHN | 30.2 | 36.08 | 19.47 |
| Blackboard, Inc. | BBBB | 39.4 | 25.41 | -35.51 |
| Concur Technologies, Inc. | CNQR | 34.3 | 24.69 | -28.02 |
| salesforce.com, Inc. | CRM | 68.6 | 26.61 | -62.21 |
| Constant Contact, Inc. | CTCT | 19 | 15.27 | -19.63 |
| DemandTec, Inc. | DMAN | 7.93 | 6.7 | -15.51 |
| Kenexa Corporation | KNXA | 19.7 | 6.79 | -65.53 |
| LoopNet, Inc. | LOOP | 11.1 | 6.5 | -41.44 |
| Netsuite Inc | N | 20.3 | 7 | -65.52 |
| Omniture, Inc. | OMTR | 19.9 | 9.09 | -54.32 |
| RightNow Technologies | RNOW | 13.7 | 5.84 | -57.37 |
| SuccessFactors, Inc. | SFSF | 11 | 6.73 | -38.82 |
| Salary.com, Inc. | SLRY | 4 | 1.77 | -55.75 |
| Taleo Corporation | TLEO | 19.6 | 8.43 | -56.99 |
| DealerTrack Holdings, Inc. | TRAK | 15.5 | 11.39 | -26.52 |
| The Ultimate Software Group | ULTI | 36.7 | 13.77 | -62.48 |
| Vocus, Inc. | VOCS | 32.4 | 15.26 | -52.90 |
| TOTAL | -42.44 |
Ok, ok, you can blame the economy. But maybe the market still hasn’t warmed up to the idea of SaaS as much as this blog has. Or, just as the original article claims, these are companies just like any other and they are suffering the same ups and downs as all other companies - the industry they are in is just a small portion of the overall formula.
For example, salesforce was hugely overvalued at $60 (personal opinion), while athenahealth keeps signing more contracts [1] [2].
I really want to say: look, all companies but one have posted decreases, this means SaaS is still new and not being adopted. However, I know in my heart that so many companies in the red must have some kind of influence from the sagging economy. It would be quite the coincidence if they are all red because of their industry.
That’s all for now. I will check back on these stocks soon. Maybe when the economoy is stabalized in 2 years, looking at these figures will make more sense.
Leave a comment