Reasonable by 2024 standards or by 1990 standards? I'm fairly sure that the P/Es of today would have been considered overvalued a few decades ago, when profits actually meant something, dividends were handed out, etc.

Stock buy backs are a tax efficient dividend. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/warren-buffett-explains-the-...

Google's PE is 25 today compared to the S&P of the 1990s 15 https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-ratio/table/by-year

That said in the 1990s the US had access to a huge new market (the USSR market), something that US companies don't have today.

Dividends are not handed out because they are a silly way to distribute profits. Buybacks are better. This way people who want money out can sell some stock and those who don't avoid a burden of reinvesting the money as well as taxes. Dividends mean a company managements thinks the stock is overvalued so it's not profitable to buy it back and it's better to pay cash out (there might be also some regulatory reasons like paying dividends to qualify for being an investment for various funds).

For those reasons avoiding companies that pay significant dividends is a superior investment strategy (because it means more competent management or management that doesn't consider the stock overvalued).

Amazon is priced for massive relentless growth.

Apple, Microsoft, Meta priced for modest growth.

> Apple [...] priced for modest growth.

Do we live in the same metaverse?

AAPL priced for modest growth? The $3tn company???

Apple's PE is 30. Seems like modest growth, is implied.

Share prices increase if the supply and demand curves for the shares move accordingly.

Share buybacks decrease supply of shares relative to demand, so share prices increase.

Share buybacks are likelier to happen the more profitable a business is.

A higher share price at time t+1 than time t means the shareholder can earn a profit if they buy a share and then sell later.

Ergo, profits mean something.

Edit: as a reply to the comment below this, please take a moment to look around and identify anything providing you utility that was the product of a publicly traded company.

A perfect example of how the only meaningful product of a publicly traded company is the stock itself.

I think they missed the idea that everything has a market. It is more of a macro econ class idea than the micro one most people take. Stock has is a market in itself. As well as the product they sell. But so is the money. The inputs for those different markets are different. You have very nicely described the market for stock dividends.