Throughout 2021, U.S. stock market valuations have hovered near all‑time highs. In June, the unadjusted price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of the S&P 500 index eclipsed the tech boom record of 2000. Many other asset classes have attained, or nearly attained, record valuations as well. Stratospheric valuations may be partially attributable to the unique circumstances surrounding Covid-19...
What Investing in Software Looks Like in 2026
In case you quietly filed Point Nine under “boring SaaS investor” … well, first of all, I’m not going to blame you. We’ve been investing in…
The Quiet Rewiring of American Finance
Stablecoins, Treasury markets, and the most significant shift in financial infrastructure that almost nobody is discussing.
ServiceNow Stock Tumbles 50% in a Year: Good Earnings Don't Stop 'Death of SaaS' | Salesforce Ben
ServiceNow's stock has experienced an 11% decline on the day of their Q4 announcements and a 50% decline over the past year.
The A.I. Boom and the Spectre of 1929
As some financial leaders fret publicly about the stock market falling to earth, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new book recounts the greatest crash of them all.
95% of organizations got zero return on AI investment in MIT study
Companies are investing tens of billions of dollars in generative AI with little to show for it.
Meredith Whittaker on Twitter / X
Now that even Goldman, Sequoia, and other major investors are calling it, it's good to remember that the shakiness of the AI market, and the mismatch between capex and ROI, has been clear for a long time to those of us who look closely at the political economy of AI. https://t.co/dLLNAcW5Sn— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) July 30, 2024
Anthropic's "Profitability" Swindle
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about how Anthropic is “about to have its first profitable quarter,” specifically an operating profit, or EBITDA profitability: Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of growth that will
Capital in the Twenty First Century
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation…
The Dividend Disconnect
ABSTRACT Many individual investors, mutual funds, and institutions trade as if dividends and capital gains are disconnected attributes, not fully appreciating that dividends result in price decreases. Behavioral trading patterns (e.g., the disposition effect) are driven by price changes instead of total returns. Investors rarely reinvest dividends, and trade as if dividends are a separate, stable income stream. Analysts fail to account for the effect of dividends on price, leading to optimistic price forecasts for dividend‐paying stocks. Demand for dividends is systematically higher in periods of low interest rates and poor market performance, leading to lower returns for dividend‐paying stocks.
Tax and the Law of Market Cycles
<p>The signature development in financial regulation over the past two decades has been the macroprudential turn: the recognition that healthy financial conditi
If Bain Capital Crypto et al invest $100M at roughly a ~$700M–$1B valuation, they likely own somewhere in the range of 10–15% of the company post-money. For a 10x return on their cheque, a $7B–$10B exit is expected. That’s exciting and scary.
Johannes Ernst
$100 million for Bluesky? A year ago? What the …
