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Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

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41–50 of 140 posts

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#41
post #29

It is very simple. There are two things happening here. One: the Fed has invested trillions buying everything under the sun (not just t-bills) to prop up the markets and make it look the economy is fine. Two: interest rates are being held artificially low by the Fed and have been for a while. So people are desperate for returns and the only place to get it is equities. It is a pyramid scheme and must pop someday. Rea…

USA is all in, expect military to prevent the pop

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#42

Unprofitable can be good or bad or unknown: Bad: they dont have product market fit and cannot price at a level that is profitable Unknown: they do have product market fit and can likely price at a level that is profitable, but choose to underprice to capture market share and grow Good: They are actually profitable but are re-investing all their profits into internal investment to become even more profitable in the fu…

But by definition if you invest profits forever you never make any; maybe if you wait long enough you own the entire market and can charge whatever you like then. Is that really actionable though? One stumble and your stock is almost worthless.

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#43
post #12

I said this in another thread, and I think it's apt here. If you have high growth, you can lose a lot of money and still have a good story. If you make some money, but don't have high growth, then you can't tell nearly as compelling of a story. Effectively, investors are assuming eventual profitability is inevitable , and measuring growth. The 90s showed that's fair... sometimes. But definitely lets pathological corp…

I’m not sure it’s about growth. Based on YCharts, it seems like Tesla’s revenue growth stalled after Sep 2018. https://ycharts.com/companies/TSLA/revenues

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#44
post #2

It's psychology-fueled. Also, a lot of companies reinvest profit so they don't have to pay taxes.

Don't they use accounting tricks these days so they can keep their cash and then carry it to the stock market? This has the double advantage to keep the stock market inflated and compared to R&D where you risk product failure, the stock market is backstopped by the government and risk-free. That's why we don't have flying cars. Instead of investment in core competencies we invest in the market.

Have you SEEN the way most people drive?

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#45
post #27

I don’t know much about the stock market outside of throwing any savings I can muster into a vanguard fund, but articles like this remind me of the scene from Silicon Valley where the Pied Piper team is talking about finding a revenue stream. Their investor, the Mark Cuban caricature, Russ Hanneman butts in and yells at them about the dangers of showing revenue and how it proves you might only be a 2x-er. "It's not a…

> Their investor, the Mark Cuban caricature, Russ Hanneman I didn't know that's what they had intended. I never once thought that's what they were going for.

[deleted]

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#46
The stock market price != value of the company. Stock market price == PERCEIVED value of a company. All the stock market does is try and find a equilibrium between parties that want to sell a stock and parties that want to buy a stock. That is it. It doesn't do anything more. You could have a company that is bleeding money month-after-month, is foretasted to never make a profit ever, but if there are more parties (for whatever reason) that want to buy the stock than those who want to sell then the price will go up. The actual financial health of a company is utterly meaningless, the only thing that matters is what investors think of company.

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#47
post #17

Also I see the stock market as a train that will take me through the dark tunnel of the inflation caused by printing all the recent money.

The US does not print inflationary dollars. It prints borrowed dollars. This is a subtle but important distinction and is why we don't see substantial inflation now, and won't in the future.

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#48
post #2

It's psychology-fueled. Also, a lot of companies reinvest profit so they don't have to pay taxes.

Don't they use accounting tricks these days so they can keep their cash and then carry it to the stock market? This has the double advantage to keep the stock market inflated and compared to R&D where you risk product failure, the stock market is backstopped by the government and risk-free. That's why we don't have flying cars. Instead of investment in core competencies we invest in the market.

You should take an intro flight lesson at a flight school. There's no way the majority of people could safely fly a personal aircraft in all weather conditions. Flying cars will have to be 100% dependent on a really good autopilot which hasn't been developed yet (which I guess is sort of the point you're trying to make).

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#49
As a former equity analyst, I would say that it's probably better just to ignore this analysis then read too much into it.

The performance of company's stock isn't based solely on whether the company reported a net income it's previous year; it's based on (imo) an ever fluctuating list of metrics, both controlled by the company (i.e. Return on Capital Invested, which net income is a component of) and not controlled by the company (i.e. cost for banks to borrow capital, future growth expectations, current market valuation).

Re: Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?

#50
post #27

I don’t know much about the stock market outside of throwing any savings I can muster into a vanguard fund, but articles like this remind me of the scene from Silicon Valley where the Pied Piper team is talking about finding a revenue stream. Their investor, the Mark Cuban caricature, Russ Hanneman butts in and yells at them about the dangers of showing revenue and how it proves you might only be a 2x-er. "It's not a…

> Their investor, the Mark Cuban caricature, Russ Hanneman I didn't know that's what they had intended. I never once thought that's what they were going for.

Cuban also owns Three Commas[0] and Hanneman makes it very clear how proud he is of being in the "Three Comma Club" [1].

[0] https://threecommas.com

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzMUrB-Um1Y

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