The Big Crash Is Imminent

seekingalpha2021-07-15

Summary The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000. The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...

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Cedric77
·2021-07-19
Invest in value stock. It will safe guard your investment. You know best what to fear if u trading with hypes and not on value.
Reply
1
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Scarface
·2021-07-16
Crash = 5%?? Lol
Reply
1
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JoelLee
·2021-07-16
Like and reply pls thx
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3
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- Bbloh:
  Ok
  2021-07-16
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Wallstrtbets
·2021-07-16
Big BS.
Reply
6
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Chris68
·2021-07-16
Tell me when is the BIG crash as I will buy more shares during the dip!
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1
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Eded
·2021-07-16
Always reserve some money for such Crash to happen
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4
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Cyn198
·2021-07-16
Good read!
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4
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Cyn198
·2021-07-16
Good infor!
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DreamyLucid
·2021-07-16
The market is driven up by artificial money created by the feds. Also, a rate hike has to come over the inflation problems. It is NOT transitory as what the fed keeps harping on.
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4
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LimLS
·2021-07-16
Too much liquidity in the market, pushing even the unprofitable companies up. Plus the retail investors chasing hype. But an irrational market might stay irrational for longer than we think. Stay vested to enjoy the ride up? Or sell to cash out the profit? Or the middle ground, start trimming our position? Up to individual judgement
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15
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- DreamyLucid:
  Wow. An actual good comment on Tiger! Thank you!
  2021-07-16
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AJR
·2021-07-16
No way
Reply
2
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羊坑
·2021-07-16
Leverage is driving it up
Reply
3
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KH321
·2021-07-16
The crash will happen when US has to increase rate and stop printing money due to inflation.
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7
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- DreamyLucid:
  Another nice comment!
  2021-07-16
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HH浩
·2021-07-16
The party will only be over in 2024… till then, happy investing. Dun wait til last moment of Cinderella…
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- ming22:
  [开心]
  2021-07-16
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Klord
·2021-07-16
Sure??
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2
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Bonds
·2021-07-16
HowIs scary
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2
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henry0leu
·2021-07-16
Why all the negativity ?
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1
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Alex1709
·2021-07-16
Valid risk points to take into consideration. Thank you.
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DragonKC
·2021-07-16
Don't lose your nerve, Happy investing. Have confidence in yourself. As an investor, we must already have plans for the worse.
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- oddoxReplying toDragonKC:
  thanks for sharing [可爱]
  2021-07-17
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- DragonKC:
  No big investment for now. Careful when buy on the dip. Stay away from Meme stocks. Hold stock with strong fundamentals. In stocks, you can lose but always can win back if you have backup cash.
  2021-07-16
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- oddox:
  whats your plan?
  2021-07-16
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Phyusin
·2021-07-16
I already loaded all of my money in . No money to buy in dip. Now almost red [Cry]
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- PengsieX:
  Likewise :(
  2021-07-16
  Reply
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}\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":".SPX","symbol_name":"S&P 500 Index","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","article_id":"1155093230","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"seekingalpha","name":"Seeking Alpha"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"seekingalpha.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".DJI":"道琼斯",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite"},"translate_title":"大崩盘迫在眉睫","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{".DJI":0.9,".IXIC":0.9,".SPX":0.9},"content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":173889582,"gmtCreate":1626652891646,"gmtModify":1703762630446,"author":{"id":"3575196385895354","authorId":"3575196385895354","name":"Cedric77","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e5ee082b05004f20d3486afedee30814","vip":1,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3575196385895354","authorIdStr":"3575196385895354"},"htmlText":"Invest in value stock. It will safe guard your investment. You know best what to fear if u trading with hypes and not on value.","listText":"Invest in value stock. It will safe guard your investment. You know best what to fear if u trading with hypes and not on value.","text":"Invest in value stock. It will safe guard your investment. You know best what to fear if u trading with hypes and not on value.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/173889582","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170657586,"gmtCreate":1626429759445,"gmtModify":1703760015579,"author":{"id":"3560993393373290","authorId":"3560993393373290","name":"Scarface","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/ecc3b3fda33ad81dbec4b8a8bf80311a","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3560993393373290","authorIdStr":"3560993393373290"},"htmlText":"Crash = 5%?? Lol","listText":"Crash = 5%?? Lol","text":"Crash = 5%?? Lol","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170657586","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170177618,"gmtCreate":1626416464234,"gmtModify":1703759752472,"author":{"id":"3579882572140125","authorId":"3579882572140125","name":"JoelLee","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e1f6c92b13d94cba61906c07dbbb2ab6","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b0a2963eb37c60c5d6d4a8dbcd266952","crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3579882572140125","authorIdStr":"3579882572140125"},"htmlText":"Like and reply pls thx","listText":"Like and reply pls thx","text":"Like and reply pls thx","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170177618","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5239845,"gmtCreate":1626439619389,"gmtModify":1663231059339,"authorId":3576451483053184,"author":{"id":3576451483053184,"idStr":"3576451483053184","authorId":3576451483053184,"name":"Bbloh","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e3242b5b662e707b1a33137bbe4c8494","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":170177618,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"Ok","text":"Ok","html":"Ok"}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170160528,"gmtCreate":1626412862764,"gmtModify":1703759680031,"author":{"id":"3566244878628904","authorId":"3566244878628904","name":"Wallstrtbets","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/6c38bbee1121ea92508ad9508fa15c5e","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b073a07f77dbe6b3bec6b12311fde6bd","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3566244878628904","authorIdStr":"3566244878628904"},"htmlText":"Big BS.","listText":"Big BS.","text":"Big BS.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":6,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170160528","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170973626,"gmtCreate":1626401813365,"gmtModify":1703759448300,"author":{"id":"3575974639321365","authorId":"3575974639321365","name":"Chris68","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1ae39a12c3ba237f3b001689ec9a549b","vip":1,"crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3575974639321365","authorIdStr":"3575974639321365"},"htmlText":"Tell me when is the BIG&nbsp;crash as I will buy more shares&nbsp;during the dip!","listText":"Tell me when is the BIG&nbsp;crash as I will buy more shares&nbsp;during the dip!","text":"Tell me when is the BIG crash as I will buy more shares during the dip!","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170973626","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170939854,"gmtCreate":1626398724078,"gmtModify":1703759348461,"author":{"id":"3581980965309451","authorId":"3581980965309451","name":"Eded","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/41a629a3014601072ee8dc2d151d1796","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3581980965309451","authorIdStr":"3581980965309451"},"htmlText":"Always reserve some money for such Crash to happen&nbsp;","listText":"Always reserve some money for such Crash to happen&nbsp;","text":"Always reserve some money for such Crash to happen","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170939854","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170905461,"gmtCreate":1626398287253,"gmtModify":1703759330543,"author":{"id":"3579600897400043","authorId":"3579600897400043","name":"Cyn198","avatar":"https://static.itradeup.com/news/93ec67f02db03a8c45239fa911c3cf4e","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3579600897400043","authorIdStr":"3579600897400043"},"htmlText":"Good read!","listText":"Good read!","text":"Good read!","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170905461","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170905697,"gmtCreate":1626398263719,"gmtModify":1703759331680,"author":{"id":"3579600897400043","authorId":"3579600897400043","name":"Cyn198","avatar":"https://static.itradeup.com/news/93ec67f02db03a8c45239fa911c3cf4e","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3579600897400043","authorIdStr":"3579600897400043"},"htmlText":"Good infor!&nbsp;","listText":"Good infor!&nbsp;","text":"Good infor!","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170905697","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170075748,"gmtCreate":1626397805784,"gmtModify":1703759316641,"author":{"id":"3569320299762451","authorId":"3569320299762451","name":"DreamyLucid","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/df94d831afbfa80ddda11b9d4ff73cf1","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3569320299762451","authorIdStr":"3569320299762451"},"htmlText":"The market is driven up by artificial money created by the feds. Also, a rate hike has to come over the inflation problems. It is NOT transitory as what the fed keeps harping on.&nbsp;","listText":"The market is driven up by artificial money created by the feds. Also, a rate hike has to come over the inflation problems. It is NOT transitory as what the fed keeps harping on.&nbsp;","text":"The market is driven up by artificial money created by the feds. Also, a rate hike has to come over the inflation problems. It is NOT transitory as what the fed keeps harping on.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170075748","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170043784,"gmtCreate":1626397114948,"gmtModify":1703759297027,"author":{"id":"3572923586954779","authorId":"3572923586954779","name":"LimLS","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/217b03b0c4808fb537070ba4e8f9d83f","vip":1,"crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3572923586954779","authorIdStr":"3572923586954779"},"htmlText":"Too much liquidity in the market, pushing even the unprofitable companies up. Plus the retail investors chasing hype. But an irrational market might stay irrational for longer than we think. Stay vested to enjoy the ride up? Or sell to cash out the profit? Or the middle ground, start trimming our position? Up to individual judgement","listText":"Too much liquidity in the market, pushing even the unprofitable companies up. Plus the retail investors chasing hype. But an irrational market might stay irrational for longer than we think. Stay vested to enjoy the ride up? Or sell to cash out the profit? Or the middle ground, start trimming our position? Up to individual judgement","text":"Too much liquidity in the market, pushing even the unprofitable companies up. Plus the retail investors chasing hype. But an irrational market might stay irrational for longer than we think. Stay vested to enjoy the ride up? Or sell to cash out the profit? Or the middle ground, start trimming our position? Up to individual judgement","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":15,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170043784","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5234803,"gmtCreate":1626397695960,"gmtModify":1663231037243,"authorId":3569320299762451,"author":{"id":3569320299762451,"idStr":"3569320299762451","authorId":3569320299762451,"name":"DreamyLucid","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/df94d831afbfa80ddda11b9d4ff73cf1","vip":1,"currentWearingBadge":{"badgeId":"1026c425416b44e0aac28c11a0848493-1","templateUuid":"1026c425416b44e0aac28c11a0848493","name":"Debut Tiger","description":"Join the tiger community for 500 days","bigImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0e4d0ca1da0456dc7894c946d44bf9ab","smallImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0f2f65e8ce4cfaae8db2bea9b127f58b","grayImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c5948a31b6edf154422335b265235809","redirectLinkEnabled":0,"hasAllocated":1,"isWearing":1,"stampPosition":0,"hasStamp":0,"allocationCount":1,"allocatedDate":"2022.04.11","individualDisplayEnabled":0,"individualDisplaySort":0,"categoryType":1001},"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":170043784,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"Wow. An actual good comment on Tiger! Thank you! ","text":"Wow. An actual good comment on Tiger! Thank you! ","html":"Wow. An actual good comment on Tiger! Thank you! "}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170036722,"gmtCreate":1626394988066,"gmtModify":1703759216690,"author":{"id":"3586302526441005","authorId":"3586302526441005","name":"AJR","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b94c34bb4b096724768a39341827b57a","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3586302526441005","authorIdStr":"3586302526441005"},"htmlText":"No way","listText":"No way","text":"No way","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170036722","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170099527,"gmtCreate":1626394430369,"gmtModify":1703759197043,"author":{"id":"3586752780223051","authorId":"3586752780223051","name":"羊坑","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/88ac1a68d3b3acc9ac25a13efb6869c0","vip":1,"crmLevel":8,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"idStr":"3586752780223051","authorIdStr":"3586752780223051"},"htmlText":"Leverage is driving it up","listText":"Leverage is driving it up","text":"Leverage is driving it up","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170099527","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170004137,"gmtCreate":1626394259729,"gmtModify":1703759192510,"author":{"id":"3586451610703869","authorId":"3586451610703869","name":"KH321","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c1bb8bd7d6d5df5f9732871fe60999ea","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3586451610703869","authorIdStr":"3586451610703869"},"htmlText":"The crash will happen when US has to increase rate and stop printing money due to inflation.&nbsp;","listText":"The crash will happen when US has to increase rate and stop printing money due to inflation.&nbsp;","text":"The crash will happen when US has to increase rate and stop printing money due to inflation.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":7,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170004137","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5234809,"gmtCreate":1626397717591,"gmtModify":1663231037143,"authorId":3569320299762451,"author":{"id":3569320299762451,"idStr":"3569320299762451","authorId":3569320299762451,"name":"DreamyLucid","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/df94d831afbfa80ddda11b9d4ff73cf1","vip":1,"currentWearingBadge":{"badgeId":"1026c425416b44e0aac28c11a0848493-1","templateUuid":"1026c425416b44e0aac28c11a0848493","name":"Debut Tiger","description":"Join the tiger community for 500 days","bigImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0e4d0ca1da0456dc7894c946d44bf9ab","smallImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0f2f65e8ce4cfaae8db2bea9b127f58b","grayImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c5948a31b6edf154422335b265235809","redirectLinkEnabled":0,"hasAllocated":1,"isWearing":1,"stampPosition":0,"hasStamp":0,"allocationCount":1,"allocatedDate":"2022.04.11","individualDisplayEnabled":0,"individualDisplaySort":0,"categoryType":1001},"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":170004137,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"Another nice comment!","text":"Another nice comment!","html":"Another nice comment!"}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170002047,"gmtCreate":1626394124289,"gmtModify":1703759189248,"author":{"id":"3582015516749888","authorId":"3582015516749888","name":"HH浩","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/2639351c97027c6f71c4d9729ef216d8","vip":1,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3582015516749888","authorIdStr":"3582015516749888"},"htmlText":"The party will only be over in 2024… till then, happy investing. Dun wait til last moment of Cinderella…&nbsp;","listText":"The party will only be over in 2024… till then, happy investing. Dun wait til last moment of Cinderella…&nbsp;","text":"The party will only be over in 2024… till then, happy investing. Dun wait til last moment of Cinderella…","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170002047","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5234234,"gmtCreate":1626395130986,"gmtModify":1635228221599,"authorId":3571044771112848,"author":{"id":3571044771112848,"idStr":"3571044771112848","authorId":3571044771112848,"name":"ming22","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":170002047,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"[开心]","text":"[开心]","html":"[开心]"}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":170000988,"gmtCreate":1626393898244,"gmtModify":1703759179784,"author":{"id":"3580186978635227","authorId":"3580186978635227","name":"Klord","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/574ccbec5d208d26acb8f42536c3b775","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3580186978635227","authorIdStr":"3580186978635227"},"htmlText":"Sure??","listText":"Sure??","text":"Sure??","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/170000988","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":147776486,"gmtCreate":1626393694745,"gmtModify":1703759173911,"author":{"id":"3582366643541036","authorId":"3582366643541036","name":"Bonds","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/7927febac32666ca13d21b532f0ff6f6","vip":1,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3582366643541036","authorIdStr":"3582366643541036"},"htmlText":"HowIs scary&nbsp;","listText":"HowIs scary&nbsp;","text":"HowIs scary","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/147776486","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":147762163,"gmtCreate":1626392129852,"gmtModify":1703759118187,"author":{"id":"3582340692890078","authorId":"3582340692890078","name":"henry0leu","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/130d0c8cbc685bc99012d9c4782e4cff","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3582340692890078","authorIdStr":"3582340692890078"},"htmlText":"Why all the negativity ?","listText":"Why all the negativity ?","text":"Why all the negativity ?","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/147762163","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":147763440,"gmtCreate":1626392003580,"gmtModify":1703759113501,"author":{"id":"4088812812352770","authorId":"4088812812352770","name":"Alex1709","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b4371c8d3e464d94c77cc0d40b9d3f48","vip":1,"crmLevel":6,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"4088812812352770","authorIdStr":"4088812812352770"},"htmlText":"Valid risk&nbsp;points to take into consideration. Thank you.&nbsp;","listText":"Valid risk&nbsp;points to take into consideration. Thank you.&nbsp;","text":"Valid risk points to take into consideration. Thank you.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/147763440","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":147760786,"gmtCreate":1626391934545,"gmtModify":1703759110432,"author":{"id":"3577178099298017","authorId":"3577178099298017","name":"DragonKC","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f90c63c67a4e5f91e9dc0159f5b853ab","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3577178099298017","authorIdStr":"3577178099298017"},"htmlText":"Don't lose your&nbsp;nerve, Happy investing. Have confidence in yourself. As an investor,&nbsp; we must already have plans for the worse.&nbsp;","listText":"Don't lose your&nbsp;nerve, Happy investing. Have confidence in yourself. As an investor,&nbsp; we must already have plans for the worse.&nbsp;","text":"Don't lose your nerve, Happy investing. Have confidence in yourself. As an investor, we must already have plans for the worse.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":7,"commentSize":4,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/147760786","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5247928,"gmtCreate":1626511708197,"gmtModify":1663231093955,"authorId":3583109252998837,"author":{"id":3583109252998837,"idStr":"3583109252998837","authorId":3583109252998837,"name":"oddox","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":3577178099298017,"repliedAuthor":{"id":3577178099298017,"idStr":"3577178099298017","authorId":3577178099298017,"name":"DragonKC","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f90c63c67a4e5f91e9dc0159f5b853ab","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"objectId":147760786,"type":1,"supId":5235631,"prevId":5237196,"content":"thanks for sharing [可爱]","text":"thanks for sharing [可爱]","html":"thanks for sharing [可爱]"},{"id":5237196,"gmtCreate":1626415003515,"gmtModify":1663231050936,"authorId":3577178099298017,"author":{"id":3577178099298017,"idStr":"3577178099298017","authorId":3577178099298017,"name":"DragonKC","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f90c63c67a4e5f91e9dc0159f5b853ab","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":147760786,"type":1,"supId":5235631,"prevId":0,"content":"No big investment for now.&nbsp; Careful when buy on the dip. Stay away from Meme stocks.&nbsp;&nbsp; Hold&nbsp; stock with strong fundamentals.&nbsp; In stocks, you can lose but always can win back if you have backup cash.","text":"No big investment for now.&nbsp; Careful when buy on the dip. Stay away from Meme stocks.&nbsp;&nbsp; Hold&nbsp; stock with strong fundamentals.&nbsp; In stocks, you can lose but always can win back if you have backup cash.","html":"No big investment for now.&nbsp; Careful when buy on the dip. Stay away from Meme stocks.&nbsp;&nbsp; Hold&nbsp; stock with strong fundamentals.&nbsp; In stocks, you can lose but always can win back if you have backup cash."},{"id":5235631,"gmtCreate":1626401850385,"gmtModify":1663231041340,"authorId":3583109252998837,"author":{"id":3583109252998837,"idStr":"3583109252998837","authorId":3583109252998837,"name":"oddox","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":147760786,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"whats your plan?","text":"whats your plan?","html":"whats your plan?"},{"id":5233985,"gmtCreate":1626394046419,"gmtModify":1663231033145,"authorId":3586451610703869,"author":{"id":3586451610703869,"idStr":"3586451610703869","authorId":3586451610703869,"name":"KH321","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c1bb8bd7d6d5df5f9732871fe60999ea","vip":1,"currentWearingBadge":{"badgeId":"972123088c9646f7b6091ae0662215be-2","templateUuid":"972123088c9646f7b6091ae0662215be","name":"Master Trader","description":"Total number of securities or futures transactions reached 100","bigImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ad22cfbe2d05aa393b18e9226e4b0307","smallImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/36702e6ff3ffe46acafee66cc85273ca","grayImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d52eb88fa385cf5abe2616ed63781765","redirectLinkEnabled":0,"hasAllocated":1,"isWearing":1,"stampPosition":0,"hasStamp":0,"allocationCount":1,"allocatedDate":"2021.12.21","exceedPercentage":"80.43%","individualDisplayEnabled":0,"individualDisplaySort":0,"categoryType":1100},"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":147760786,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"I have no plan..... [笑哭]","text":"I have no plan..... [笑哭]","html":"I have no plan..... [笑哭]"}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":147784477,"gmtCreate":1626391833899,"gmtModify":1703759107187,"author":{"id":"3584490239949882","authorId":"3584490239949882","name":"Phyusin","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/73d7e61a3a910d1d25acb7dcee29f7ca","vip":1,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3584490239949882","authorIdStr":"3584490239949882"},"htmlText":"I already loaded all of my money in . No money to buy in dip. Now almost red [Cry]&nbsp;","listText":"I already loaded all of my money in . No money to buy in dip. Now almost red [Cry]&nbsp;","text":"I already loaded all of my money in . No money to buy in dip. Now almost red [Cry]","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/147784477","repostId":1155093230,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1155093230","pubTimestamp":1626359281,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1155093230?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2021-07-15 22:28","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The Big Crash Is Imminent","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1155093230","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>The continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.</li>\n <li>The bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.</li>\n <li>While it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).</li>\n <li>This article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.</li>\n</ul>\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c688f97bd5e513daa2e0c76d5ace6a1c\" tg-width=\"1845\" tg-height=\"651\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/02ae7e7ebc11fdc907d363cb5da38576\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"427\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5804bc535329d20e013417a7e3f95614\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/68b42d04a15d16c506a4abf4feb58df0\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"518\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n<blockquote>\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n</blockquote>\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9f507c5687771a8a8de99a914be11665\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"411\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Source: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4a305d90c1f4751d0267c01347a54a33\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">Data by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/596471096e40e42abea97e9ed5a0a6d6\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"501\">Data by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The Big Crash Is Imminent</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe Big Crash Is Imminent\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-15 22:28 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4439223-the-big-crash-is-imminent","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1155093230","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe continuous easing of monetary policy inflated various stocks to levels last seen during the dot.com bubble in 2000.\nThe bubble is relatively concentrated and doesn't necessarily pose threats to the market as a whole.\nWhile it is clear that there is a strong deviation from historical valuation norms, valuations could continue to rise (at least in the short term).\nThis article is not meant as fear-mongering, and I may very possibly be wrong about my hypothesis.\n\nIt seems that the talk about whether we are in another Tech bubble has been going on for many years. Articles and news calling for the 'crash of the decade' have been condemned as fear-mongering with little substance to them. After all, technology stocks kept on rising, and those who listened missed out on impressive gains. Now, generally speaking, neither have I been too worried about valuations in the best, as fundamentals towards Technology in our society are simply too strong.\nHowever, a lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, which has led me to rethink my perspective. As the global pandemic shut down economies around the world and caused substantial economic contraction, federal banks counteracted by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, grants, loans, etc. As a result, fresh liquidity immediately reflected itself in stocks and other market instruments.\nSource: Bloomberg\nThroughout this article, I want to demonstrate a few graphs to strengthen my argument, with the chart above being the first one. The Nasdaq 100 is perhaps the most common index to track the technology market, although it only includes profitable and large-cap Tech stocks. On average, the index currently holds a Price to Sales ratio of 5.7x, levels that the Index last saw in early 2001 after the dot.com bubble began to bust.\nIt is important to note that at the height of the bubble, the ratio stood at 7.5x, around 30% higher than it is right now. Still, the median valuation has been trailing significantly lower, at around 3.5x over the last 20 years. Of course, it can be argued that Technology deserves a higher valuation these days due to the increased use of Technology and perhaps higher growth rates. However, should Technology valuations be nearly 100% higher than just 5 years ago, in 2016, where Technology integration was pretty much at the same level as today?\nProfitability\nIn recent years, unprofitable but growing companies have been favored over mature and profitable companies. Usually, rotations from Growth to Value or the other way around occur every 2-5 years, which is totally unsurprising. Historically, in terms of performance, there has been no significant difference in terms of returns on a risk-adjusted basis - it really does depend on the time period of investing. That said, in the last 5 years, growth outperformed value by a wide margin - by 105% to be exact. I derived this from the 5-year performance chart of Vanguard's Growth ETF vs. Vanguard's Value ETF. This compares with an expected anomaly of 5% annually or a 28% expected anomaly for a 5-year time period.\nSource: Leuthold Group\nUnsurprisingly, the number and market value of unprofitable companies has skyrocketed throughout the last couple of years. Here, the total number of unprofitable firms has skyrocketed to over 200, while their combined value handily beats 2000 levels, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion (3 times higher than in 2000). Of course, there is more money in circulation today, so when accounting for the dollar's real value, they are at comparable levels. Again, either way you twist it, there is a significant anomaly in the value of unprofitable companies in the stock market.\nSource: FT\nAs a result, startups have utilized the opportunity to raise as much money as possible by going public. In total, nearly 900 companies in the U.S. have gone public in 2021, raising over $202 billion collectively. Before, the previous record was set in 2000, when around 600 companies rang the bell. What's even more frightening is the fact that a large portion of IPOs went public through special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these companies were acquired early on, with the only objective to go public as soon as possible. Here, various blank-check companies generate little or no revenues and face a rockier path to raising money through traditional IPOs.\nToday's Bubble\nFrankly, today's bubble is fundamentally different from the 2000 bubble, although there are striking similarities. Arguably, the dot.com bubble revolved purely around Internet stocks. Today, the bubble is much broader, ranging from old written-off industries to Consumer Tech, being concentrated on Cybersecurity. This makes sense, considering Cybersecurity is a quickly evolving industry with potentially billions of earnings for future winners in the space. The same applies to E-commerce, Fintech, Cloud Computing, Gene Editing, and other major future industries.\nData by YCharts\nThis brings me to my next chart: High-flying stars of the early Internet era traded at similar multiples to cloud computing stars of today (when adjusted for monetary changes). However, early market leaders tend to lose competitive advantages in rising industries, in what someresearchersrefer to as \"First to Market First to Fail.\" Here, early entrants typically bury the greatest market and technological uncertainties.\nIn other words, no one knows yet how our new industries will look like and how consumer trends will evolve. For instance, Facebook(NASDAQ:FB)was the 10th social networking company, Google(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)the 12th search engine, etc. Thus, today's most promising companies are unlikely to be the most promising companies 10 years from now. It is therefore questionable if current valuations can be supported in the long term.\nThis is where I want to introduce Cisco's(NASDAQ:CSCO)example from 1999. At the time, the dominating Internet company briefly became the world's mostvaluablecompany, boasting a market cap of $569 billion. Certainly, the market wasn't being crazy at the time, considering Cisco's impressive growth rates and a trillion dollars industry ahead that was changing the world. An extract from Cisco's annual report in 1999:\n\n \"Cisco predicted that the Internet would change the way we work, live, play, and learn. For the fiscal year ending July 31, 1999, Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, a 43 percent increase compared with revenue of $8.49 billion in fiscal 1998. Net income for the year was $2.10 billion or $0.62 per common share, compared with fiscal 1998 net income of $1.35 billion or $0.42 per common share. - CiscoAnnual Report1999\"\n\nNow, at the height of Cisco's valuation, the stock was trading at around 35 times Price to Sales, which is comparable to today's valuations, considering gross margins and growth rates. As with every new industry, competition eventually took market share from Cisco and crushed growth rates, leading to a sequential 87% drop in its share price. Although shares somewhat recovered, Cisco is still trading some 33% below all-time highs 22 years later.\n\"Cisco Could Be Safest Net Play Around\" -Bloomberg 1999\nAgain, that does not necessarily mean that the same will happen to today's stars. After all, early winners like Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)and Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT)eventually recovered and are now trading well above dot.com levels. However, it is quite unlikely that all of today's stars will also be tomorrow's stars.\nInflation...\nArguably, inflation serves as one of the biggest investment risks in today's market. It was somewhat expected that inflation would tick up once the economy starts to recover with consumer spending skyrocketing. In this regard, the consumer price index rose by 5.4% in June, the highest since August 2008. That is well above the 5% rise reported in May and higher than the 4.9% increase that economists initially forecast. This challenges the Federal Reserve's hopes that the burst of inflationary pressures accompanying the economic reopening will be of temporary nature. Earlier, investors and economists have scrutinized the Federal Reserve's aggressive fiscal and monetary policy.\nSource: Twitter\nFiscal and monetary policy usually serve as driving factors for the creation of bubbles and are simultaneously responsible for their destruction. For instance, in 2000, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates several times; these actions are believed to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Interestingly, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, stocks initially rallied. If we draw comparisons, a similar price movement can be observed today in Tech stocks, particularly growth stocks. Here, prominent names have been rising by 50% or more since May, despite the Fedwarningof higher interest rates and the potential for 'significant declines' in asset prices as valuations continue to climb.\nData by YCharts\nThat said, Fed President Jim Bullard expects the first interest rate hike coming as soon as 2022, which would be even faster than the consensusexpectationfor the first increase to happen in 2023. Earlier in March, officials initially indicated that they see no increase happening until at least 2024. In other words, in a matter of months, the timeline for a rate hike has shifted forward by 2 years. Thus, the next few months will be crucial to determine which way the timeline will shift; for now, it appears that the prior date is more likely.\nWhat about Big Tech?\nThe question remains whether Big Tech stocks will be as severely affected during a notable pullback. Interestingly, except Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL)and Microsoft, FAANG members, including Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix(NASDAQ:NFLX), have been trailing behind in terms of performance, being reflected in the given valuations. Only Apple and Microsoft saw a notable valuation expansion in every significant metric out of the prominent Big Tech names. Here, Apple's P/E and P/S ratio nearly tripled over the last 5 years from 10x to 32x and 2.5x to 7.5x, respectively. These are historical valuation levels and dwarf the valuation expansions of Microsoft and Alphabet, which are supported by growing profitability over the years. However, it should be noticed that Apple's Price to Book Value disproportionately increased as a result of share buybacks.\nData by YCharts\nOn the other hand, Facebook and Amazon observed no significant valuation expansion, which can be tied back to regulatory scrutiny and an overall rotation towards high-growth stocks. Thus, since their market betas are lower than other Tech stocks mentioned earlier, these stocks can serve as a safe haven, at least to some extent. However, an overall drop in the market will lead to short-term weakness in every Technology stock, undervalued or not. Nevertheless, stocks that have underperformed in the rally over the last five years are more likely to outperform during a downturn. Moreover, large Tech companies are less sensitive to higher inflation as they will earn higher interest on their cash reserves.\nSo What?\nThe stock market is always driven by two contradicting emotions: Fear and Optimism. Over the last couple of years, optimism has clearly dominated the Growth/Technology market, yielding impressive returns and widely outperforming stable but profitable companies. However, valuation growth exceeded business growth for many high-growth companies, making various stocks appear increasingly overvalued. While higher valuations can be supported by the acceleration of Technology in the future, striking similarities of the Tech bubble in 2000 make me increasingly cautious of today's market environment.\nBubble or not, many graphs point to a significant anomaly in valuations, and it will be difficult for companies to justify these sorts of valuations in the long term. More importantly, a heating economy with rising inflation will pressure the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to prevent an economic contraction.\nNonetheless, investors can protect themselves by rotating back into stable value stocks or Big Tech companies that have underperformed on a relative basis. The issue with every insurance is that you are only being paid in the case of a crash, quite literally. After all, valuations of high-growth stocks could continue rising and those not invested miss out on potential gains. Another viable option could be to rotate back into cash, but the same prior issue applies here. Even those who decide to short stocks have to be careful since an upside ceiling doesn't exist in the market.\nThis is the point where I would like to address the risks of my thesis: First, inflation may stabilize quicker than expected, which would push a potential interest rate hike back to 2024 or later. In this case, money will continue to be cheap, which will support higher valuations and the growth market in general. Secondly, companies can scale somewhat faster today, making a historical valuation comparison to early years less relevant. Lastly, I could be underappreciating given growth rates and the ability of management to shake off competition in the long run. Still, given the various uncertainties around valuations, I am more fearful than optimistic at the moment.\nIn either way, if you have a different opinion or any counterarguments to my thesis, I'm happy to hear about it in the comment section!","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5233645,"gmtCreate":1626392453181,"gmtModify":1663231032542,"authorId":3578047933589423,"author":{"id":3578047933589423,"idStr":"3578047933589423","authorId":3578047933589423,"name":"PengsieX","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ebe92821eba3b91a6431d698b66bbed5","vip":2,"currentWearingBadge":{"badgeId":"972123088c9646f7b6091ae0662215be-2","templateUuid":"972123088c9646f7b6091ae0662215be","name":"Master Trader","description":"Total number of securities or futures transactions reached 100","bigImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ad22cfbe2d05aa393b18e9226e4b0307","smallImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/36702e6ff3ffe46acafee66cc85273ca","grayImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d52eb88fa385cf5abe2616ed63781765","redirectLinkEnabled":0,"hasAllocated":1,"isWearing":1,"stampPosition":0,"hasStamp":0,"allocationCount":1,"allocatedDate":"2021.12.28","exceedPercentage":"80.94%","individualDisplayEnabled":0,"individualDisplaySort":0,"categoryType":1100},"crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":147784477,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"Likewise :(","text":"Likewise :(","html":"Likewise :("}],"langContent":"EN"}],"hasMoreComments":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":385,"commentSize":112,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":3,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false}}