Let me re-iterate my point...
The US market is swimming in liquidity, yet investment in small caps, biotech, and other areas has been languishing for some time. Some on Wall Street describe this as a "divergence." This means that some areas are having problems financing expensive research, development, and capital equipment expansions. What's worrisome is that some of these investments are important for productivity gains in the long term. So perhaps some small medical biotech firm is working on a cheap cure for cancer, but will never make it due to scarce funds. Or, in general, small cap investment may never recover, and a whole segment of the economy will keel over.
AT THE SAME TIME some companies are struggling, companies like Yahoo and Amazon are awash in funds. However, these are very "economically thin", non- investment-oriented companies. Pull up a balance sheet for Yahoo, and you will see what I mean. Most of the expenditure goes towards advertising. Further, little "brick and mortar" is required for these thin businesses to expand, so there is no "trickle down" effect from invested capital. Said another way, Yahoo really only needs to add more web page links to expand. They don't need to do research, build plants, or hire a broad set of employees.
Basically, what you have is a big pile of money sitting there, generating little or no economic value. Keep in mind, it isn't Yahoo that generates economic value, but the Internet itself, which improves logistics for many micro-economies.
(earlier points) Message 8741606 Message 8742525 |