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The DotCom Crash Revisited
woginuk writes "At 9:00pm GMT today , it will be exactly 5 years since the Nasdaq reached its highest level, 5048.62. From there on it has been downhill all the way. Most of us have been affected by it, one way or the other. The Guardian has a story looking back on the moment and succeeding events."
only the End of the Beginning. Startups continue to get funded although they now have to have some reasonable idea of how they will actually make money. There was a report on the San Francisco public radio station yesterday that said that if you look at growth in Silicon Vally over the last 20 years and "flatten" (whatever that means) the growth around the bubble, Silicon Valley continues to grow at relatively the same pace as before.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Well, I moved to Silicon Valley in 1983. Back then everybody talked about how expensive houses were (a nice house was in the high 100-low 200k) and how overpriced the real estate market was. Save for a minor dip in the 90's housing prices have never fallen in 22 years. The median price in Santa Clara County (not where Larry Ellison & Steve Jobs live... where regular folks live) is $615k.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The Nasdaq did indeed crash, in every sense of the word. Just look at the declines in ALL the big names, and most of the small names, top to bottom. Many former $100, 200$ stocks traded to oblivion or a fraction of their former highs. Look at former high fliers like CMGI for an example, or RBAK perhaps even better!
QCOM (post split) 100 to 11, 90% decline.
RBAK Now 6.52. When you factor in all the splits it was something like 14,000.
CMGI - was 163ish now 1.92.
JNPR now 22.34. Sounds like an ok stock, until you realize its high was almost 245$.
And the list goes on. And on.
These examples are the definition of a bubble and a crash, a (hopefully) once in a generation event.
If any of you want to remember the crazy days of the tech bubble check out the documentaries Startup.com and e-dreams.
I still remember being somewhat tech savy, going to investors conferences and "not getting" how these companies that would never make significant money were commanding these valuations. It was like being in some sci-fi movie where everyone has been replaced by pod people.