The I-gaming stock market has grown at an explosive rate in the last few months. According to data from www.streetdice.com, the market capitalization for the entire I-gaming industry grew from US$2.13 billion on January 10 to $3.95 billion as of February 8--an amazing 85 percent increase.
(see graphs)
StreetDice takes an alternative approach toward assessing the market; it illustrates the total U.S. dollars traded for each stock and for the industry as a whole. A stock that traded 1 million shares in a day may look impressive, but if the stock is trading at $0.03, that's only US$30,000 in trades. One or two persons' trading activity could constitute the entire trading day. A stock that trades $40 million in a day would illustrate a company with many interested parties.
StreetDice offers the following observations of the I-gaming market:
- Since January 2, 2000, I-gaming stocks have traded a total of US$1.6 billion. That's 37 percent compared to the $4.4 billion traded for the entire year of 1999. On January 13, a record $264 million traded in I-gaming stocks. The highest trading day in 1999 was USD $83 million on March 18, 1999.
- In November of 1999, the Industry was trading in a range of $6 million to $16 million each day. Recently, I-gaming stocks have been trading $40 to $110 million each day.
- In November of 1999, the average I-gaming stock was trading $100,000 to $200,000 each day. Currently, the average stock is trading $800,000 to $2 million each day.
- The I-gaming Indexes, of which there are 2, are both at all-time highs. The SUM INDEX (sum of all stock prices) is at 211, while the AVERAGE INDEX (average of all stock prices) is at 4.40
- More and more "E"s have been added to these over-the-counter bulletin board I-gaming stocks. The "E" is placed as the last letter of the ticker symbol and indicates the SEC has either not received nor approved the company's financials. Companies have a set numbers of days to comply or become delisted (removed) from the exchange. A large percentage that get delisted have not returned to the market. Right now, the SEC is up to companies with original registration names starting with an "O." OTC Bulletin Board trading companies with registration names starting with P through Z still require review.
- Despite the numbers of I-gaming companies being delisted, the number of companies coming into this community continue to replacing the ones delisted.
No matter how you slice it, the public sector of I-gaming is growing quickly and it isn't exhibiting any signs of stopping soon.