The IPO of Slack in the USA has received a lot of media coverage. This is one of those technology stocks that is on what at first glance is a sky-high valuation. Slack provides workplace collaboration software and last year had revenues of $400 million, and lost $140 million. The market cap is now around $20 billion which means it is valued at about 50 times revenue. Those are the negative numbers. The positive aspect is that it roughly doubled revenue in each of the last two years. With such growth are profits or losses important? But it’s surely a case of investors piling into a hot story, i.e. following the herd.
There’s an interesting article by Megan Boxall in this week’s Investor’s Chronicle comparing the current mania for technology stocks with the dot.com bubble of the 1990s. She reports that 2018 saw the highest proportion of loss-making company IPOs since 2000 and the market is awash with private equity money being ploughed into early stage loss-making companies.
Well I lived through the dot.com era and managed to sell a software business and retire before the boom became a bust. The current mania for technology stocks certainly reminds me of that era. Growth certainly adds to value, but growth in profits not revenue is what matters. Many early stage companies can grow revenue given enough investment but often they never make a profit. And when the realisation comes, investors drop the company like a hot potato. The key question is to look at when a company will stop consuming cash and at least look like it will breakeven. Before that point, it’s simply a speculation. Investors in the dot.com boom realised later on that they were going to lose money on most of their punts and the whole sector became untouchable for some years.
The other question to ask about Slack is whether it has some unique technology that cannot be easily copied. I am not sure it does on a quick review.
ICO and Adtech
I mentioned in a blog post om April 10th my concerns about privacy after I was bombarded with advertising for SuperxxDry products after mentioning the company in my blog. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has now published a report which says the Adtech industry must mend its ways. Basically personal data is being shared without the users’ consent, possibly to hundreds of advertising firms.
The ICO has effectively warned the industry that they must reform themselves as the use of personal data has been unlawful. See https://tinyurl.com/yxk7d494 for more information and to read their report. This will clearly affect any company operating in this sector including such giants as Google. But it is surely a move that is to be welcomed by anyone concerned about privacy and those not wanting to be bombarded by irrelevant advertising.
Buy on Friday, Sell on Monday
I have noticed over the last few months that my portfolio tends to rise on Mondays and fall on Fridays. It certainly did this week again. It appears that investors pile in to small cap stocks and investment trusts on Monday morning, but lassitude sets in on Fridays.
Researching the internet seems to suggest that this is a known pattern. So clearly it is best to be contrarian and buy when prices are temporarily down on Friday and avoid buying on Monday. So that’s my tip for today.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
Monday is also the ‘hot’ day for weekend newspaper and Investment magazine ”tips”