These sky-high valuations partly reflected tech companies’ characteristics.

这些天价估值在一定程度上反映了科技公司的特点。

Firms from Alphabet to Zoom tend to have relatively few physical assets that are captured by book value and many intangible ones—such as software and human capital—that are typically not included.

从Alphabet到Zoom等公司按账面价值计入的有形资产相对较少，而许多无形资产--如软件和人力资本--通常不包括在内。

They also tended to be fast growers, meaning that measuring their price against present earnings risked understating future profits.

而它们往往也发展迅速，这就导致，如果将它们的价格与目前的利润进行比较，可能会低估未来的利润。

For this reason, tech stocks appealed more to “growth” investors, who tend to buy companies with rapidly rising profits, than they did to value types.

Finance & economics

财经板块

Buttonwood: The sock parallel

梧桐树：股票和袜子差不多

Tech stocks have tanked. Are they now good value?

科技股大幅下挫。它们现在划算吗?

As any savvy shopper knows, there is a world of difference between a sale and a deal.

正如任何精明的顾客都知道的那样，降价和划算之间有着天壤之别。

Just because something is discounted from its initial price does not mean it is worth buying—perhaps that the sticker price was far too high originally, the discount is too small or the item is simply poor quality.

某样东西有折扣并不意味着它值得购买--也许是最初的标价太高，或者折扣太小，或者只是这件东西的质量太差了。

Such considerations will be on the minds of people hitting the shops on November 25th for “Black Friday”, a mammoth sale which follows America’s Thanksgiving holiday.

美国感恩节过后的11月25日是“黑色星期五”，在这场巨大的降价活动中购物的人会考虑到上述这类问题。

They are always on the minds of investors.

但投资者无时无刻都在考虑这些问题。

“Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down,” Warren Buffett, a celebrated investor, once joked.

著名投资者沃伦·巴菲特曾开玩笑说：“无论我们谈论的是袜子还是股票，我都喜欢在降价时购买优质商品。”

Most share prices have fallen this year—the S&P 500 index of American stocks has shed more than a fifth of its value—but the prices of technology stocks have plunged most precipitously.

今年，大多数股票价格都出现了下跌--美国股市的标准普尔500指数市值缩水了五分之一以上--但科技股的价格暴跌最为剧烈。

The tech-heavy NASDAQ is down by almost a third, after poor third-quarter earnings precipitated yet another sell-off.

在第三季度盈利不佳引发新一轮抛售之后，以科技股为主的纳斯达克指数下跌了近三分之一。

Amazon, Netflix and Meta have this year shed a whopping 48%, 58% and 70% of their value.

亚马逊、Netflix和Meta今年的市值分别暴跌了48%、58%和70%。

Such discounts mean tech stocks are certainly on sale.

这样的“折扣”意味着科技股肯定在打折。

But are they a good deal?

但它们划算吗？

The art of evaluating whether a company is a bargain at its current price is one practised by so-called value investors, who earn that title because they seek out stocks unloved by other investors despite solid fundamentals.

评估一家公司的当前价格是否划算的艺术，是所谓的价值投资者做的事，他们之所以获得这个头衔，是因为尽管基本面稳固，但他们仍在寻找其他投资者不喜欢的股票。

For much of the past decade, tech stocks have been an unattractive proposition to these parsimonious types.

在过去10年的大部分时间里，科技股对这些吝啬的人来说一直是一个没有吸引力的投资对象。

That is in part down to how value investors assess companies and in part to the characteristics of tech firms.

这部分归因于价值投资者评估公司的方式，部分归因于科技公司的特点。

The original value investor was Benjamin Graham, an academic and author, in whose footsteps Mr Buffett treads.

最初的价值投资者是学者兼作家本杰明·格雷厄姆，巴菲特正是追随了他的脚步。

And Graham relied most of all on two measures: the ratio of share price to earnings, which compares the market value of a firm with its profits; and price to book value, which compares a share price to the value of a company’s assets, such as property, equipment and inventories.

格雷厄姆主要依赖于两个衡量标准：一是股价与收益的比率，即将公司的市值与利润进行比较；二是价格与账面价值的比率，即将股价与房地产、设备和库存等公司资产的价值进行比较。

For much of the past decade tech stocks have looked mighty expensive on these measures.

在过去10年的大部分时间里，按照这两个衡量标准，科技股都显得非常昂贵。

At the beginning of the year, the share prices of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Netflix were on average 38 times earnings and 12 times book value.

年初，Alphabet、亚马逊、苹果、Meta和Netflix的股价平均为利润的38倍和账面价值的12倍。

The equivalent figures for the Russell 1000, a broad index of stocks, were 24 times earnings and four times book value.

而它们在罗素1000指数（一种广泛应用的股指）中的数据分别为利润的24倍，和账面价值的4倍。

Neither group would have qualified as a deal for Graham: he liked firms priced at below 15 times earnings and 1.5 times book value.

对于格雷厄姆而言，这两组数据都谈不上划算：他喜欢市盈率低于15倍、股价低于1.5倍账面价值的公司。

But tech’s multiples would have been particularly off-putting.

但科技股的数据尤其不够格。

来源：经济学人