Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a stock market bubble that built during the late 1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Internet, resulting in a dispensation of available venture capital and the rapid growth of valuations in new dot-com startups. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, investments in the Nasdaq Composite stock market index rose by 600%, only to fall 78% from its peak by October 2002, giving up all its gains during the bubble. It is also known retrospectively as the tech–media–telecom bubble, since it boosted established companies in those sectors as well as Internet startups.
During the dot-com crash, many online shopping companies like Pets.com, Webvan, and Boo.com, as well as several communication companies, such as WorldCom, NorthPoint Communications, and Global Crossing, failed and shut down; WorldCom was renamed to MCI Inc. in 2003 and was acquired by Verizon in 2006. Others, like Lastminute.com, MP3.com and PeopleSound were bought out. Larger companies like Amazon and Cisco Systems lost large portions of their market capitalization, with Cisco losing 80% of its stock value.
Background
Historically, the dot-com boom can be seen as similar to a number of other technology-inspired booms of the past, including railroads in the 1840s, automobiles in the 1900s, radio in the 1920s, television in the 1940s, transistor electronics in the 1950s, computer time-sharing in the 1960s, and home computers and biotechnology in the 1980s.Overview
Low interest rates in 1998–99 facilitated an increase in start-up companies.The dot-com bubble burst in 2000, causing numerous startups to fail after depleting their venture capital without becoming profitable. However, some online retailers like eBay and Amazon survived and later became highly profitable. Traditional retailers also began using the web as a supplementary sales channel. While many online entertainment and news sites collapsed when funding ended, others endured and eventually became self-sustaining. The sites that persevered had two things in common: a sound business plan, and a niche in the marketplace that was, if not unique, particularly well-defined and well-served.
In the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, telecommunications companies had a great deal of overcapacity as many Internet business clients went bust. That, plus ongoing investment in local cell infrastructure kept connectivity charges low, and helped to make high-speed Internet connectivity more affordable.
During this time, new business models helped enhance the web's appeal. These included airline booking platforms, Google's search engine and keyword-based advertising, services like eBay's auction site and Amazon.com's online department store. The internet's low-cost global reach challenged traditional practices in advertising, direct sales, and customer management. These developments helped to overturn established business dogma in advertising, mail-order sales, customer relationship management, and many more areas.
The web was a new killer app—it could bring together unrelated buyers and sellers in seamless and low-cost ways. Entrepreneurs around the world developed new business models, and ran to their nearest venture capitalist. While some of the new entrepreneurs had experience in business and economics, the majority were simply people with ideas, and did not manage the capital influx prudently.
Additionally, many dot-com business plans were predicated on the assumption that by using the Internet, they would bypass the distribution channels of existing businesses and therefore not have to compete with them; when the established businesses with strong existing brands developed their own Internet presence, these hopes were shattered, and the newcomers were left attempting to break into markets dominated by larger, more established businesses.
The dot-com bubble burst in March 2000, with the technology heavy NASDAQ Composite index peaking at 5,048.62 on March 10, more than double its value just a year before. By 2001, the bubble's deflation was running full speed. A majority of the dot-coms had ceased trading, after having burnt through their venture capital and IPO capital, often without ever making a profit. But despite this, the Internet continued to grow, driven by commerce, ever greater amounts of online information, knowledge, social networking and access by mobile devices.
Prelude to the bubble
The 1993 release of Mosaic and subsequent web browsers during the following years gave computer users access to the World Wide Web, popularizing use of the Internet. Internet use increased as a result of the reduction of the "digital divide" and advances in connectivity, uses of the Internet, and computer education. Between 1990 and 1997, the percentage of households in the United States owning computers increased from 15% to 35% as computer ownership progressed from a luxury to a necessity. This marked the shift to the Information Age, an economy based on information technology, and many new companies were founded.At the same time, a decline in interest rates increased the availability of capital. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which lowered the top marginal capital gains tax in the United States, also made people more willing to make more speculative investments. Alan Greenspan, then-Chair of the Federal Reserve, allegedly fueled investments in the stock market by putting a positive spin on stock valuations. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was expected to result in many new technologies from which many people wanted to profit.
The bubble
As a result of these factors, many investors were eager to invest, at any valuation, in any dot-com company, especially if it had one of the Internet-related prefixes or a ".com" suffix in its name. Venture capital was easy to raise. Investment banks, which profited significantly from initial public offerings , fueled speculation and encouraged investment in technology. A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices in the quaternary sector of the economy and confidence that the companies would turn future profits created an environment in which many investors were willing to overlook traditional metrics, such as the price–earnings ratio, and base confidence on technological advancements, leading to a stock market bubble. Between 1995 and 2000, the Nasdaq Composite stock market index rose 400%. It reached a price–earnings ratio of 200, dwarfing the peak price–earnings ratio of 80 for the Japanese Nikkei 225 during the Japanese asset price bubble of 1991. In 1999, shares of Qualcomm rose in value by 2,619%, 12 other large-cap stocks each rose over 1,000% in value, and seven additional large-cap stocks each rose over 900% in value. Even though the Nasdaq Composite rose 85.6% and the S&P 500 rose 19.5% in 1999, more stocks fell in value than rose in value as investors sold stocks in slower growing companies to invest in Internet stocks.An unprecedented amount of personal investing occurred during the boom and stories of people quitting their jobs to trade on the financial market were common. The news media took advantage of the public's desire to invest in the stock market; an article in The Wall Street Journal suggested that investors "re-think" the "quaint idea" of profits, and CNBC reported on the stock market with the same level of suspense as many networks provided to the broadcasting of sports events.
At the height of the boom, it was possible for a promising dot-com company to become a public company via an IPO and raise a substantial amount of money even if it had never made a profit—or, in some cases, realized any material revenue or even have a finished product. People who received employee stock options became instant paper millionaires when their companies executed IPOs; however, most employees were barred from selling shares immediately due to lock-up periods. The most successful entrepreneurs, such as Mark Cuban, sold their shares or entered into hedges to protect their gains. Sir John Templeton successfully shorted many dot-com stocks at the peak of the bubble during what he called "temporary insanity" and a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity". He shorted stocks just before the expiration of lockup periods ending six months after initial public offerings, correctly anticipating many dot-com company executives would sell shares as soon as possible, and that large-scale selling would force down share prices.
Spending tendencies of dot-com companies
Most dot-com companies incurred net operating losses as they spent heavily on advertising and promotions to harness network effects to build market share or mind share as fast as possible, using the mottos "get big fast" and "get large or get lost". These companies offered their services or products for free or at a discount with the expectation that they could build enough brand awareness to charge profitable rates for their services in the future.The "growth over profits" mentality and the aura of "new economy" invincibility led some companies to engage in lavish spending on elaborate business facilities and luxury vacations for employees. Upon the launch of a new product or website, a company would organize an expensive event called a dot-com party.