Like all Americans, I am waiting, patiently, for tech stocks to rebound. As I wait, I keep thinking about that famous study where they told the kids they could have one cookie now, or if they could hold off for a few hours without drooling on the table, they could have two cookies later. I always wondered how I would have performed in that test. I love cookies. Sea salt chocolate chip is my all-time favorites. Would I have opted for the immediate gratification or held out for the more lucrative offer?
Waiting for tech stocks to rebound feels a little like that test. I haven’t sold anything yet and the numbers for the year are pretty depressing.
INTU -29%
PINS -64%
UPST -78%
HOOD -72%
FUBO -87%
PYPL -58%
DOCU -64%
META – 54%
SHOP -A LOT!
Some of the purchases just seem dumb in retrospect. FUBO’s valuation was ridiculous for a company with a below average user interface and few, if any, of the major sports leagues affiliated with the service. If we all woke up tomorrow and there was no more FUBU TV, would anyone really care?
Robinhood was another poor decision. At one point I was sure one of the bigger players like Fidelity or Vanguard would buy them to get access to their mobile platform and just out of college user base. But with Fidelity’s app getting better and better all the time, crypto feeling like a trend whose best days are behind it and the increasing likelihood that few of Robinhood’s users ever went to college, I’m not sure there’s really any value there.
Meta or Facebook is the real question. Is this metaverse thing ever really gonna take off? It’s such a huge bet that will either make all Meta holders extremely rich or make us all feel incredibly stupid for hanging onto our shares this long. I’m very skeptical. Personally, I’d much rather have real world experiences, like a real world wife, a real world daughter, a real world dog and a real world beer than experience any of those in the metaverse.
Part of me wants to sell out of all these companies and just put everything in an S&P Index Fund. The market in general, and those index funds in particular, are undefeated over long stretches of time. To sell now, or anytime really, is a fools game. And so I wait, and wait, and wait, hoping that second cookie will be worth it.
