Tech Tock Tech Tock…


Remember the dot-com crash?  The NASDAQ dropped nearly 80% very very quickly.  

Right now we have the NASDAQ hitting new all time highs, and don’t think it is just a contained ‘tech thing’ either.  The S&P500 (the world’s biggest index) has relied on just 10 companies for nearly half of all gains year to date (and that is scary enough).  The first 5 are all tech: Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.  The table below shows the performance, and more amazing still the relative size (far right column)…

Now let’s look at the NASDAQ now compared to the dot-com bubble:

But the dot-com bubble was because the market got carried away with the concept rather than the reality (Snapchat anyone?).  It ‘was different this time’.  No it wasn’t.  What about this time?

No surprises then that Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest Fund Manager Survey found it was the most crowded trade:

Because like last time confidence was soaring, everything was awesome, fundamentals didn’t matter:

As a reminder, if your shares drop 80%, you need to make 500% on what’s left to just get back to square…  But it’s probably nothing….