PYMNTS Launches The CE100™ Index – A New Equity Index That Tracks The Digital Transformation

The 2010s saw the rise of a never-before-seen class of innovator, with forward-thinking companies using smartphones, mobile apps data and the cloud to reinvent the relationships with their customers. More than a decade later, the accelerating pace of digital innovations has in turn given rise to an all-new paradigm — a digital-first way of shopping, paying and living, which we call the ConnectedEconomy™.

In this new and increasingly digital-first economy, commerce is driven first and foremost by companies that enable new eCommerce experiences that blur the line between the physical and digital worlds. The movers and the shakers of this ecosystem are not the same as those of the past, however. Their identities and the full extent of their influence could only ever be guessed or assumed — until now.

Enter the CE100™ Index, a new benchmark designed to track the transformation and growth of the connected economy. PYMNTS set out to identify the 100 companies that play the largest role in driving the global economy’s transformation to a digital-first society, one in which nearly every activity from shopping, to banking, to dining, to socializing, to traveling and more is performed with the help of connected devices, whether they be laptops, smartphones, wearables, connected cars, voice-activated devices and beyond. Our research results from an endeavor that began in April 2020, drawing from interviews with hundreds of c-suite executives and tens of thousands of consumers, used to provide never-before-seen insight into the key influencers of the ConnectedEconomy™ and their importance in shaping consumers’ everyday lives.

Key findings from our research include the following:

• The CE100™ Index has consistently outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and the S&P 500 from 2017 to 2021. We witnessed a 97% increase in the CE100™ Index score between Jan. 1, 2017, and Dec. 31, 2019, for example. This is compared to an 84% increase in the Nasdaq Composite and a 54% increase in the Dow during the same time frame. This indicates that the stock prices of the 100 companies that have played the most central roles in driving the U.S.’s digital transformation have been increasing at a far more rapid pace than their peers.

• The CE100™ Index has surged amid the pandemic, reaching its highest point just after Pfizer reported successful vaccine trials in November 2020. The index remained high throughout the surge in Delta variant infection rates and all the way until the rise of Omicron in late 2021. The index has since dipped, falling below Nasdaq. It is unclear if, when and how far the CE100™ Index will rise again, but this momentary decrease seems to suggest that other companies are beginning to catch up with the CE100™ in terms of driving digital commerce.

• Tesla, Nvidia, CrowdStrike, Fiverr and MongoDB have outperformed all other CE100™ companies since January 2020. These five top performers’ stock prices showed the greatest overall compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of any companies in the past two years. Tesla is the runaway top performer, with its stock prices seeing an average CAGR of 219% during the past two years.

These findings are just the beginning of a much broader and ever-unraveling story about how some of the most innovative businesses are reshaping consumers’ use of technology to engage with businesses and each other. The CE100™ Index sets the stage for an ongoing examination of how the movers and the shakers of the ConnectedEconony™ are changing consumers’ lives everywhere.

To learn more about the 100 companies driving the U.S. and the global economy’s continuing digital transformation, download the report.