Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

Re:Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack by rchaud on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @01:44PM (#25279788)

This is why I invest in index funds only and never look at individual stocks. It wasn't even 15 years ago in college that I was taught that fundamental analysis and buy-and-hold value-based investing was the way to go for individual investors. The 'discipline of the market' will force companies to improve their fundamentals and by extension, their profitability over time.

That advice seems laughable now, even if you hold for years. Companies are going public while nowhere near profitability. And others are experiencing surging prices on the basis of hype and rosy promises about the future. You can say "that's just tech companies", but it's not 1999 anymore. 'Tech' is not a new and mysterious industry with made-up metrics, they make up the largest companies in our economy.

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Re:Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack by eecks on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @02:30PM (#25280432)

So are you saying it is worth investing in unprofitable companies (at IPO time) because the market will force the company to improve it's profitability going forward?

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Re:Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack by rchaud on Thursday December 03, 2020 @06:06PM (#25296641)

I am saying almost the opposite, actually.

The time to invest in an IPO stock is before it goes public, not after. IPOs are priced to extract the maximum possible capital, partly why the prices usually dive within the first trading day. Buying on the secondary market (NYSE/NASDAQ)is putting money in the pockets of the investment bank that underwrote the issue.

Of course once a company has been public for a while and there is sufficient public information about their performance, you can choose to go the value investing path.

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