Summary: Bubbles in the information age differ from those of simpler times. Now we have real-time data showing our folly. Here’s a brief review, another in our series of posts about this mad cycle. Listen while you read and you’ll hear the stock market roaring to the moon.
“You can’t cheat an honest man.”
— Title of W. C. Fields movie, describing the essence of bubbles (1940). Bubbles are consensual hallucinations. Each participant choose to join.
(1) Goldman tells the story
As usual, Goldman gives us clear analysis, in mild professional language — seeing events earlier than the rest of the pack. Via Zero Hedge). The 21st century differs from anything seen before. We see it as distinct phases; future generations will see it as one event (as we’ve combined what participants saw as seperate events into the War of the Roses and the Napoleonic Wars).
Stocks with attractive valuation are rare in the current environment of stretched share prices. The aggregate S&P 500 trades at 17.3x forward EPS and 10.2x EV/EBITDA. The only time during the past 40 years that the index traded at a higher multiple was during the 1997-2000 Tech Bubble. The median stock sports a P/E and EV/EBITDA of 18.0x and 11.0x, respectively. These valuations rank in the 99th percentile of both P/E and EV/EBITDA multiples since 1976.
Valuations ratios are deceptively simple, as they’re interpretation relies on larger factors such as interest rates and the economy’s expected future growth rate. If fears of secular stagnation prove correct, people today pay big money for growth that will not arrive. Also likely to be disappointed are people hoping to sell at valuations like those of 1999-2000. Those were based on GDP growth rates almost twice ours. From 1996-2000 GDP grew at ~4.5%; it was 7.4% in Q4 1999 — fueling dreams of our economy roaring like never before.
(2) The biotech bubble
Ever bubble has a heart from which the euphoria is pumped out into the wider society. In this cycle it’s the biotech industry. Like the railroads in 1840s and the internet in the 1990s, the biotech industry has a great future. But like its predecessors, valuations have grown beyond realistic bounds. For news from the front see this: “Forget the tech bubble. It’s the biotech bubble you should worry about“, Max Nisen, Quartz, 19 February 2015. — Excerpt:
Big pharma firms and investors have been showering billions on speculative companies that have never produced a viable drug. For four years running, biotech stocks have risen faster than any other sector of the market in the United States. Health care set new records last year for both IPOs and M&A spending. … Cheap debt, a frenzy of publicity for research that hasn’t yet led to any products, and obscenely high pricing for the medicines that make a difference are all adding fuel to the fire.
As usual, the extreme madness appears in the paper-manufacturing business: the people creating new companies and doing Initial Public Offerings. Fortunes are made by farming gullible investors. Drugs go through five phases from conception to approval: preclinical work, 3 rounds of testing on people, and getting FDA approval. The number of IPOs having only drugs in the first 3 phases has grown to insane levels.
Why are these insane investments? The odds are better at Las Vegas than for early stage drug development projects, and at Vegas you get free drinks served by pretty ladies. Look at the betting program:
Biotech: Success rates by phase. By KMR, 8 August 2012.
Printing paper for gullible investors
Bubbles just don’t happen even in the most favorable climate; they’re made. Creating start-ups in a hot market is easier than drilling for oil, and more profitable. Investors give up their money more easily than the Earth yields its treasurers. The complex of venture capitalists, attorneys, ad investment bankers have constructed a money magnet.
Another note from the front lines: “Look at how quickly the values of multi-billion-dollar startups have multiplied“, Nitasha Tiku, The Verge, 20 February 2015 — “A quick note on how profitability relates to valuations: it doesn’t! At least not yet.” See the following graphic; see the bubbles grow over time! Size of the circle shows the dollars raised in each deal. Go to the article to see this as an interactive graphic, where you can click on each dot for details. Click to enlarge.
