NEW YORK (AP) – The last time the Nasdaq was this high, Bill Clinton was president, Microsoft dominated the tech world and the iPod, iPhone and iPad didn’t exist.
Fifteen years later the Nasdaq is again near 5,000 and close to topping its record from the dot-com boom. The index has clawed back, riding a six-year bull market, and is less than 100 points from its all-time high of 5,048.62 reached March 10, 2000.
But this isn’t the Nasdaq of Pets.com and Webvan, when companies were valued on “cash burn rates” and “eyeballs.”
“Certainly, the Nasdaq at 5,000 conjures up images of a tech bubble,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. “But we’ve had time for business profits to grow into those crazy expectations 15 years ago.”
As the tech-mania took hold, investors pushed up the prices of all kinds of internet-related stocks. Some were never profitable and disappeared. Others, like Priceline.com and Amazon, have survived and prospered.