Softbank is the mother ship of the invasion force
With all of the daughter VCs being launched by Softbank, sort of reminds me of the movie "Independence Day", where the mothership sent out an enormous fleet of ships, each hovering over every major city in the world.
Of course Softbank is the mothership, and its purpose is benign and helpful instead of destructive. But it is interesting that Softbank is a generation above other VCs, being a VC-holding company that holds other VC-holding companies.
Michel may be time traveler, along with Son. Maybe they met 10 years in the future at some cybercafe and were sharing a cosmobeer together?
A simpler predictive algorithm: Plot Softbank's growth (moving average, use 1-year plot) on a log scale. It's a beautiful straight line going up with a doubling time of 3 months (16-fold per year), with no signs of slowing down YET. As long as this continues, I don't think any other stock can beated. Even Michel's other stock price targets are (CMGI, SFE, etc.) do not exceed Softbank's present rate of growth.
Several weeks ago, I made the decision to go 95% Softbank in my portfolio, and, aside from some PCCLF and HRCT, I am pretty much still there. Very happy, by the way, as some of the very promising China nets I was following have not collectively made a major move, and meanwhile Softbank has gone up > 50%.
Whereas the growth rate for Softbank has to slow eventually, I think it is entirely conceivable for a rate of 16-fold per year to be sustained throughout the year 2000. My own view is a more conservative halving of the growth rate, to only an 8-fold increase over the 2000 year period (doubling every 4 months instead of every 3 months).
I've actually been 80% Softbank in my portfolio since June of this year, and am quite pleased with this decision.
Some on this board, whose knowledge of Asian affairs I valued highly (and continue to value highly) seem to me a bit skittish (dance like a butterfly sting like a bee strategy, I suppose). We are all colored by past investing experience, and I think the previous fall in the HK stock markets may, with good reason, make people very nervous. So discretion may be the better part of valor. But my own style is to jump in with both feet, which I have, and I'm still floating, even levitating a bit. :-))
Basically, I think that Softbank is in the process of transforming the economy of an entire G7 country (Japan, of course), and to worry that it's market cap will exceed that of microsoft, and therefore fear that growth will stop in the near future, is far too conservative.
Jonas |
