Slashdot Mirror
Has the Second Dotcom Bubble Started?
An article at the Guardian asks whether the exceedingly high valuations of social tech companies signify the arrival of a second dotcom bubble. Quoting:
"Every week, one of the new generation of internet firms seems to attract a sky-high valuation. Zynga, the social-network games company that has tempted millions to grow virtual vegetables in its FarmVille game, has been valued at $9bn (£5.54bn). Profitless Twitter is said to be worth $10bn. Groupon, vendor of online discounts, rejected a $6bn offer from Google and is considering a flotation with a potential valuation of $15bn. Tech-watchers say this is just the start: the real boom will come when Facebook, the head boy of the new dotcom frenzy, goes public, probably next year. ... The last dotcom boom really took off after the flotation of the internet software company Netscape in 1995. Patrick says this time it's likely to be Facebook that lights the fuse. So far, private investors have been locked out of the New Thing. But JP Morgan is setting up a fund, and Goldman Sachs recently tried to get its clients' money into Facebook."
It takes all of five seconds: Apple's P/E ratio has been 18-20 for a while now. This morning it's 19.57. It's stock price has risen a lot in the last few years, but it has also been making and selling products like mad, and making huge amounts of profit (not just revenue) in the process.
If we're talking about P/E, let's make some comparisons:
Ford 9.42
MS 11.47
Acer 13.18
IBM 14.24
Medtronic 14.25
Pfizer 18.74
Google 23.96
Verizon 40.67
Netflix 79.48
So, in short, there's a wide range of P/E ratios among viable (and profitable) companies. Apple's P/E puts it a bit on the high end, but not wildly so. It is relatively cheap compared to, say, the P/E of the entire S&P 500. P/E is just one contributor that guides whether to buy or sell a stock.
Where you might be able to make an argument is that most of the established companies, particularly those with P/Es at or below AAPL's, pay out dividends, and that's one main way investors make money off them. The yield is typically 1-2% per year, so you'd still be waiting decades to earn back an investment through dividends alone.
Apple doesn't pay a dividend, and never has, so the only way to make money on it is to buy low and sell high. If you'd snagged it years ago, before the introduction of the iPhone, for instance, then sold today, you'll have made a boatload, several times what you put in. And that isn't a Ponzi scheme: you owned a share of a profitable company, and that company grew because it generated new business and made money doing so. The potential for making that money by riding a company's growth is a contributor to P/E. Apple has a good track record of breaking into new business and expanding, so its P/E is a bit higher. Ford is unlikely to capture a brand new and rapidly growing market sector, so its P/E is lower.