From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Wed Dec 29 1999 - 14:16:33 MST
The tech-heavy Nasdaq stock exchange just closed at a new record high
today, closing over 4,000 for the first time for a gain of 84% this year.
This is the largest one-year gain in any stock market index ever (at least
in the USA).
This performance has been gratifying to those of us heavily weighted
towards technology. But it's also interesting because the Nasdaq has been
doing very well for the last four or five years. This coincides with
revisions to productivity measures that have eliminated the apparent
"productivity paradox", showing that productivity has indeed been rising
thanks to computer and communications technology. The Singularitarians
among us may be expecting these gains to keep accelerating. While I don't
see that, I am pretty bullish on the tech sector for 2000.
It's quite a thrill to see the combination of growing enthusiasm about the
future, major breakthroughs in biotechnology (especially genomics), gains
in technology stocks, all at the rationally meaningless but symbolically
significant turn of the millennium.
Can we expect to see a continued growth in productivity (needed to keep
stock prices rising and economic growth high and rising without inflation)
due to information technology in the next year, five years, and ten to
twenty years? Many of us think that economic growth will really accelerate
if nanotech and AI come about together. But what about the period *before*
those two drivers hit full force? Thoughts?
Merry Millennium!
Max
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