Rocket, et al:
Here's an interesting comparison. You comment that There is only one thing still needed: AOL's stock volatility still has to catch up with its maturity Intuitively, anyone who follows Internet stocks knows, as you point out, that this is already happening. Here's a little more objective look at the same idea.
The following table shows the volatility of AOL, a few other internet stocks and a couple of tech stocks, as well as expressing that volatility as a percentage of the S&P 500's (SPX) volatility. Since volatility also expresses market risk, we can say, for example, that MSFT is 1-1/2 times more volatile than the market, DELL and AOL a bit over 4x as volatile as the market, but AMZN, which has a long way to go before it turns into one of your mature companies, is over 12x as volatile as the market. Notice that even intuitively we know that AMZN is a lot risker stock to own than MicroSoft. Also notice that the more "mature" the company is the less volatile and risky.
Symbol....Volatility.....Volatility/SPX Volatility
SPX..........17.24%.......1.00x
MSFT.........27.09%.......1.57x
DELL ........75.44%.......4.38x
AOL..........80.14%.......4.65x
YHOO .......157.85%.......9.16x
AMZN........221.28%......12.84x
Best,
--Steve |
