Strong Fourth Quarter for Data Center Stocks

The U.S. stock markets rebounded in the fourth quarter of 2011, and shares of data center companies fared particularly well during the late-year rally. Every company on our Data Center Investor list of industry stocks outperformed the Dow Jones Industrials in the final three months of the year, with gains ranging from 12 percent to 62 percent. The Dow was up 11.9 percent during the same period.

The big winner for the quarter was Akamai Technologies, the leading content delivery network (CDN), which bounced back after a tough first half of the year.  Akamai (AKAM) got a shot in the arm from its acquisition of Cotendo, a rival that had gained traction in next-generation services.

Here's a look at how data center stocks fared in the quarter.

dc-stox-4q-2011

The three real estate investment trusts (REITs) focusing on the data center also had strong quarters. CoreSite Realty (COR), DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT) and Digital Realty Trust (DLR) recorded gains of between 21 and 24 percent for the quarter.

For the full year, the big winner was Rackspace,  which saw its shares soar 36 percent over the course of the year as its cloud computing business continued to grow and gain momentum. See our roundup of the top data center stocks of 2011.

Remember to track our Data Center Investor channel for performance updates on data center companies. For tracking individual stocks, you can see our “Companies” page, or just type the company’s ticker symbol into our search box.