The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned 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 Startup company. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, investments in the NASDAQ composite stock market index rose by 80%, only to fall 78% from its peak by October 2002, giving up all its gains during the bubble.
During the dot-com crash, many online shopping companies, notably Pets.com, Webvan, and Boo.com, as well as several communication companies, such as Worldcom, NorthPoint Communications, and Global Crossing, failed and shut down. 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
Overview
The dot-com bubble burst in 2000, causing numerous startups to fail after depleting their venture capital without becoming profitable.A revealing look at the dot-com bubble of 2000 — and how it shapes our lives today | (ted.com) However, some, notably online retailers like eBay and Amazon, survived and later became highly profitable.‘Wallets and eyeballs’: how eBay turned the internet into a marketplace | eBay | The GuardianHow Amazon Survived the Dot-Com Bubble | HBS Online 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,The new dot com bubble is here: it’s called online advertising – The Correspondent 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.Where Are They Now: 17 Dot-Com Bubble Companies And Their Founders (cbinsights.com) 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 Dotcom Bubble Burst (2000) (internationalbanker.com)
The dot-com bubble burst in March 2000, with the technology heavy NASDAQ index peaking at 5,048.62 on March 10 (5,132.52 intraday), 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.McCullough, Brian. (2018). How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone. Liverlight Publishing.
Prelude to the bubble
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.
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 . 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.
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.
On January 10, 2000, America Online, led by Steve Case and Ted Leonsis, announced a merger with Time Warner, led by Gerald M. Levin. The merger was the largest to date and was questioned by many analysts. Then, on January 30, 2000, 12 ads of the 61 ads for Super Bowl XXXIV were purchased by dot-coms (sources state ranges from 12 up to 19 companies depending on the definition of dot-com company). At that time, the cost for a 30-second commercial was between $1.9 million and $2.2 million.
Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan, then Chair of the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates several times; these actions were believed by many to have caused the bursting of the dot-com bubble. According to Paul Krugman, however, "he didn't raise interest rates to curb the market's enthusiasm; he didn't even seek to impose margin requirements on stock market investors. Instead, it he waited until the bubble burst, as it did in 2000, then tried to clean up the mess afterward". Finance author and commentator E. Ray Canterbery agreed with Krugman's criticism.
On Friday March 10, 2000, the NASDAQ Composite stock market index peaked at 5,048.62. However, on March 13, 2000, news that Japan had once again entered a Lost Decades triggered a global sell off that disproportionately affected technology stocks. Soon after, Yahoo! and eBay ended merger talks and the Nasdaq fell 2.6%, but the S&P 500 rose 2.4% as investors shifted from strong performing technology stocks to poor performing established stocks.
On March 20, 2000, Barron's featured a cover article titled "Burning Up; Warning: Internet companies are running out of cash—fast", which predicted the imminent bankruptcy of many Internet companies. This led many people to rethink their investments. That same day, MicroStrategy announced a revenue restatement due to aggressive accounting practices. Its stock price, which had risen from $7 per share to as high as $333 per share in a year, fell to $140 per share, or 62%, in a day. The next day, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, leading to an inverted yield curve, although stocks rallied temporarily.
Tangentially to all of speculation, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his conclusions of law in the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp. (2001) and ruled that Microsoft was guilty of monopolization and tying in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. This led to a one-day 15% decline in the value of shares in Microsoft and a 350-point, or 8%, drop in the value of the Nasdaq. Many people saw the legal actions as bad for technology in general. That same day, Bloomberg News published a widely read article that stated: "It's time, at last, to pay attention to the numbers".
On Friday, April 14, 2000, the Nasdaq Composite index fell 9%, ending a week in which it fell 25%. Investors were forced to sell stocks ahead of Tax Day, the due date to pay taxes on gains realized in the previous year. By June 2000, dot-com companies were forced to reevaluate their spending on advertising campaigns. On November 9, 2000, Pets.com, a much-hyped company that had backing from Amazon.com, went out of business only nine months after completing its IPO. By that time, most Internet stocks had declined in value by 75% from their highs, wiping out $1.755 trillion in value. In January 2001, just three dot-com companies bought advertising spots during Super Bowl XXXV. The September 11 attacks accelerated the stock-market drop. Investor confidence was further eroded by several accounting scandals and the resulting bankruptcies, including the Enron scandal in October 2001, the WorldCom scandal in June 2002, and the Adelphia Communications Corporation scandal in July 2002.
By the end of the stock market downturn of 2002, stocks had lost $5 trillion in market capitalization since the peak. At its trough on October 9, 2002, the NASDAQ-100 had dropped to 1,114, down 78% from its peak.
Several companies and their executives, including Bernard Ebbers, Jeffrey Skilling, and Kenneth Lay, were accused or convicted of fraud for misusing shareholders' money, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission levied large fines against investment firms including Citigroup and Merrill Lynch for misleading investors.
After suffering losses, retail investors transitioned their investment portfolios to more cautious positions. Popular that focused on high tech stocks, such as Silicon Investor, Yahoo! Finance, and The Motley Fool declined in use significantly.
In a 2015 book, venture capitalist Fred Wilson, who funded many dot-com companies and lost 90% of his net worth when the bubble burst, said about the dot-com bubble:
The bubble
Spending tendencies of dot-com companies
Bubble in telecom
Bursting the bubble
Aftermath
Job market and office equipment glut
Legacy
See also
Further reading
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