QOTD: Einhorn on Equity-Subsidized Business Models

David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital on the way stock investors seem to be picking their favorites these days. This comes from a his latest quarterly commentary to investors.

He must be reading my stuff btw.

Given the performance of certain stocks, we wonder if the market has adopted an alternative paradigm for calculating equity value. What if equity value has nothing to do with current or future profits and instead is derived from a company’s ability to be disruptive, to provide social change, or to advance new beneficial technologies, even when doing so results in current and future economic loss? It’s clear that a number of companies provide products and services to customers that come with a subsidy from equity holders. And yet, on a mark-to-market basis, the equity holders are doing just fine.

Source:

Greenlight Capital