Is Europe becoming uninvestable?

[John Hjorth]

50 minutes ago, Luke said:

I don't think the size of a company or several companies is an indication of a prosperous country. It's also not necessarily a sign of a "good" company. ...

 

@Luke ,

 

I haven't even tried to draw any conclusions from the numbers exersises done by me above. I'm just stuck like another terrier in the pant leg of Super Mario's statements above and the sentiment expressed in this topic, thus leaving the conclusioins up to you.

 

Questions for every reader:

 

1. Are any of these companies  uninvestable, and in that case, for any of them - why?

2. Are any of these companies, in particular uninvestable, because they are headquatered in Europe, respectively in an EU member country?

 

[Needless to say, I personally consider much of the EU talk in this topic, really biased, because I consider it overblown, and based on generalizations.]

Edited September 15 by John Hjorth

[Luke]

Europe and European countries have a heck of a lot of wonderful companies of various sizes. Just because they don't have any tech megacaps doesn't mean they are not innovative. There are thousands of midcap suppliers of semiconductors, robotics, cars, etc. 

 

Part of why there are no EU equivalents to US-mega caps is their monopolistic structure. Good luck getting venture investments for a Facebook, Windows, Apple 2.0

[Luke]

23 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

 

@Luke ,

 

I haven't even tried to draw any conclusions from the numbers exersises done me above. I'm just stuck like another terrier in the pant leg of Super Mario's statements above and the sentiment expressed in this topic, thus leaving the conclusioins up to you.

 

Questions for every reader:

 

1. Are any of these companies  uninvestable, and in that case, for any of them - why?

2. Are any of these companies, in particular uninvestable, because they are headquatered in Europe, respectively in an EU member country?

 

[Needless to say, I personally consider much of the EU talk in this topic, really biased, because I consider it overblown, and based on generalizations.]

All of these are insanely high quality, there is no shame in not having a trillion or two trillion USD marketcap. I have 0 bias towards any country in the world as long as the price is right and the story  

[John Hjorth]

11 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

... Is it a stretch to surmise that 100% of the people in the below image probably hate Elon Musk? ... 

 

9 hours ago, Luke said:

... X is a complete mess, you cant contact them about your account, they ban people and you get no feedback why. If you want the data they have about you they dont contact you back. The guy cant do what he wants with a business of that size. We are not in the wild west. ...

 

What has Elon Musk and X to do with this topic  - Both Elon and X are today considered American, I think, X not even listed [, and thereby unavaiable for us] 

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Personally, I speculate it's about some material and basic differencies in attitudes and opinions about societal design and entrepreneurship, and  the attitude towards the concept of 'Everybody is the smith of his own luck'.

 

There exist the phenomen called Old World, and there exists thereby the opposite of that also.  It's based on history and roots so deep in differencies among cultures : 

 

Wkipedia : European immigration to the Americas. [Those who outwandered from Europe to the US, likely saw more opportunities than challenges for the future, based on self confidence, self esteem and optimism], while those staying put were willing to accept available, but miserable living conditions, as they were.]

 

In that light, the economic miracle of the United States of America, has almost been a given thing, so far.

 

But it does not embrace everything.

 

I.e. think luxury, where the concept of vanity is rooted in a prior, then decadent and totally opulent European Upper Class, exploiting and suppressing other, lower classes, before basic human rights evolved over time in Europe.

Edited September 15 by John Hjorth

[Dalal.Holdings]

1 hour ago, John Hjorth said:

 

 

What has Elon Musk and X to do with this topic  - Both Elon and X are today considered American, I think, X not even listed [, and thereby unavaiable for us] 

 

 

Those European regulators, like many liberals in the USA, dismiss Elon's accomplishments and think that if they just threw money at the same problems via government agencies run by academics, they'd achieve the same results as Elon. They think risk taking entrepreneurs like Elon are nothing special and a lifetime academic physics professor much more respectable and representative of "science".

 

EU regulators do not respect the invisible hand, startups, random successes etc. This is great for Europe's multigenerational rich families who have ruled the continent for centuries...they won't get disrupted by new money.

 

This has nothing to do with X. However, the relevant part with X is EU is now trying to stifle free speech on the X platform (they've also gone after Telegram).

Edited September 15 by Dalal.Holdings

[Dalal.Holdings]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Which regulations AGAINST big tech by the EU are in YOUR opinion "bad"? Please explain. 

 

For starters, the AI Act is a joke--regulating something BEFORE it has even sprouted as a technology (and of course no company in the EU is even competitive in AI which makes it all the more laughable). Then there's GDPR where we are all inundated on the internet to "accept cookies". DO you think these regulations make sense @Luke ?

 

4 hours ago, Luke said:

The golden eggs are tax evasion, lowest corporate taxes ever, anti-repair anti-consumer products, record high dividends and buybacks, and coercing entire countries with their power  They are not a good goose! 

The golden eggs are on the U.S. West coast now. Incubators that allow a plethora of startups, some of which become unicorns. Companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Uber, Airbnb, etc. How are the EU carmakers doing on EVs? How is the EU/ESA doing in terms of space launches?

 

4 hours ago, Luke said:

X is a complete mess, you cant contact them about your account, they ban people and you get no feedback why. If you want the data they have about you they dont contact you back. The guy cant do what he wants with a business of that size. We are not in the wild west. 

X is a free speech platform. Thierry clearly does not understand that and a lot of Europeans don't either. I see problems in the UK (where people are being arrested for posting "hate"), France, etc.

 

Free speech, defiance of authority, independent thought, etc are ingrained into American culture and allow those golden egg startups to be incubated here. In Europe, they are suffocated in the womb. I thought these were Enlightenment principles that originated in Europe, but now they seem to have been pushed aside.

 

Now read this letter from Thierry and help it make sense for me:

 

 

 

Edited September 15 by Dalal.Holdings

[Spekulatius]

Elons companies are sort of a bad examples because there  is a cult behind it that pushes the valuation to high multiples. If you do the same comparison just using objective criteria like profits, Europe looks quite a bit less bad.

 

Another co that was started from scratch just a bit more than 50 years ago is actually Airbus - market cap 103B Euro and one example where European cooperation worked.

[Spekulatius]

X is neither free speech nor unbiased. It’s Elon running the business like it’s his hacienda as the Venezuelans say.

 

People complaining about MSM bias and then totally overlooking that Elon uses X as a Maga propaganda platform is pretty much the pinnacle of hypocrisy.

 

He also puts himself about national laws and then complains when it backfired. Still plays nice to his Chinese overloads though.

[no_free_lunch]

Doesn't the market kind of speak for itself?  I see some successful euro companies but so?  The way to evaluate is the indexes and they suck.   Vanguard Europe (VGK) is STILL below is 2008 peak.  Dead money for 16 years and just a small 2% or so dividend.  Sure individual stocks have done well but it's hard enough to beat the market, so now you HAVE to beat the market just to make a profit.

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, no_free_lunch said:

Doesn't the market kind of speak for itself?  I see some successful euro companies but so?  The way to evaluate is the indexes and they suck.   Vanguard Europe (VGK) is STILL below is 2008 peak.  Dead money for 16 years and just a small 2% or so dividend.  Sure individual stocks have done well but it's hard enough to beat the market, so now you HAVE to beat the market just to make a profit.

I think valuations for European companies are lower than for comparable companies in the US. The best piece of evidence is the re-listing of companies  from  Europe to the US leads to a sometimes significant valuation boost. CRH is a very recent example. So in my opinion the market cap comparison is not something  should be taken in isolation  and looking at other numbers/metrics makes sense too. For example Europes GDP is lower than the USA by almost 50%, so what your really should do is compare $50B market cap companies to $100B market cap companies in the USA if normalized for GDP.

 

What if I tweeted that Austrian stocks market suck because Australia does not have even a single trillion market cap company ?

 

Again this does not explain the whole divergence and it easy to see that the US indices have performed better than the European ones, but I think the tweet is both factional incorrect and more importantly compares somewhat cherry-picked numbers.
 

[Dalal.Holdings]

4 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

X is neither free speech nor unbiased. It’s Elon running the business like it’s his hacienda as the Venezuelans say.

 

People complaining about MSM bias and then totally overlooking that Elon uses X as a Maga propaganda platform is pretty much the pinnacle of hypocrisy.

 

Are you referencing X the platform or Elon's posts on X? The latter do not have to be unbiased as they reflect his own personal views. I still see lots of Elon hate and liberal posts on X, so unless I missed something, I don't think he has censored opposing viewpoints. Old Twitter management did restrict conservative viewpoints (covid origins, Hunter Bided laptop), often under pressure from the government which is highly worrying.

 

Free speech is an issue when governments try to restrict free speech with laws and crackdowns -- as the UK, EU, and Brazil are demonstrating. Also, under old Twitter, the U.S. government tried to restrict speech on Twitter by pressuring the company to censor what they deemed "problematic". That is a lot more troubling than a platform being biased. Fox News and MSNBC can be biased, but that does not mean they are anti-free speech. It is when governments restrict free speech that it is a problem and that's what Elon is up against in UK, EU, and Brazil.

 

 

4 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

 

He also puts himself about national laws and then complains when it backfired. Still plays nice to his Chinese overloads though.

 

It's true he himself avoids insulting CCP, however anti-CCP speech is NOT restricted on X. In fact, X/Twitter is and long has been blocked in China. So again, aside from Elon the person which is irrelevant, I'm not sure that you have proved anything here about free speech on X the platform.

 

Edited September 15 by Dalal.Holdings

[Dalal.Holdings]

4 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Elons companies are sort of a bad examples because there  is a cult behind it that pushes the valuation to high multiples. If you do the same comparison just using objective criteria like profits, Europe looks quite a bit less bad.

 

Another co that was started from scratch just a bit more than 50 years ago is actually Airbus - market cap 103B Euro and one example where European cooperation worked.

 

If all you have point to are Airbus, SAP, ASML, etc as examples, then you've proved my point. These are exemplars of 20th century industries, not 21st.

 

Elon's companies are great examples because they would never exist in EU. SpaceX, Paypal are two examples where you didn't need frothy capital markets and SpaceX leaves European Space Agency in the dust. 

 

What Elon does is tolerate failure and iterate and improve upon failure. The EU mindset is that failure is intolerable and so everything has to be preplanned with lots of committees and regulatory guardrails. That's not at all how startup culture works.

 

And that's just one entrepreneur in America. You have a whole ecosystem of 21st century stalwarts born in America and just about zilch in EU. I guess you can give them Spotify but that's about it...

 

Edited September 15 by Dalal.Holdings

[Dinar]

@Dalal.Holdings, with all due respect, what will replace Airbus & ASML in the 21st century?  

[Dalal.Holdings]

6 minutes ago, Dinar said:

@Dalal.Holdings, with all due respect, what will replace Airbus & ASML in the 21st century?  

If you can’t name a major company started this century on your continent, then your continent is way behind America when it comes to innovating. It’s not hard to understand. That is all. 
 

Good luck with that AI Act though!

 

Edited September 16 by Dalal.Holdings

[Spekulatius]

SPOT

BionNTech

Adyen

Revolut

Genmab

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

The lack of innovation is not just restricted to EU. Even the northeastern part of the United States is looking like the EU in many ways. Old money liberal philosophy and old firms like IBM, GE, etc which have lost their luster. The new stuff is pretty much confined to Silicon Valley.

 

Liberals think that innovation comes from PhDs working in a lab like the movies. In actuality, it's risk taking cowboys in Silicon Valley, many of whom fail and go bust (we only see the winners due to survivorship bias). Liberals tend to enact regulations that hamper the true innovators.

 

You can look at AI Act, Thierry Breton, Lina Khan, Elizabeth Warren, Davos Crowd, etc. These personalities think they are making the world better, but they are eliminating the positive tail risk takers who drive innovation forward.

 

"Fail fast, fail often" culturally mainly exists in a few pockets of the United States which churn out vast amounts of innovation.

[John Hjorth]

@Dalal.Holdings,

 

-Aaannd *POOF* - Mr. Breton is history :

Edit :

 

 

Edited September 16 by John Hjorth

[Dalal.Holdings]

Maybe a European can explain to me how GDPR and asking you to accept cookies on every website has improved their lives/protected them online? Unfortunately it's one of those "EU innovations" that even those of us in the USA are forced to suffer through...

 

I have a feeling these annoying regulatory regimes are the result of bureaucrats sitting in their offices in Brussels being compelled to "do something".

 

 

[UK]

1 hour ago, John Hjorth said:

@Dalal.Holdings,

 

-Aaannd *POOF* - Mr. Breton is history :

Edit :

 

 

 

At least he has good sense of humour:))

[formthirteen]

2 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

-Aaannd *POOF* - Mr. Breton is history :

 

I hope his letter to Elon Musk and the response from Jim Jordan got him fired: https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-jordan-presses-european-union-attempts-censor-elon-musk-and-political

 

15 minutes ago, UK said:

 

At least he has good sense of humour:))

 

True. However, I suspect there were no "common European interests" tasks for him to work on

 

Quote

It has been an honour & privilege to serve the common European interest

 

Unless this was sarcasm from Thierry. I guess we will never know.

Edited September 16 by formthirteen

[jouni1]

48 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

Maybe a European can explain to me how GDPR and asking you to accept cookies on every website has improved their lives/protected them online? Unfortunately it's one of those "EU innovations" that even those of us in the USA are forced to suffer through...

 

I have a feeling these annoying regulatory regimes are the result of bureaucrats sitting in their offices in Brussels being compelled to "do something".

 

 

GDPR has made sure that companies that don't respect human rights when handling data are fined properly. I saw it personally in the case of Dropbox, which told users it was going to start using their stored data to train AI models, except for EU customers.

 

Of course it doesn't show up in business valuations in the short term. If that's the only measure of a successful law then I guess GDPR is a failure.

[Dalal.Holdings]

https://www.ft.com/content/09cf4713-7199-4e47-a373-ed5de61c2afa

 

Quote

Brussels has accused its internal market commissioner of going rogue by sending a letter to Elon Musk threatening punishment if content posted on social media site X was found to place EU citizens at risk of “serious harm”. Thierry Breton, the French commissioner, had posted the warning letter on X, the platform owned by Musk, hours before the billionaire interviewed US presidential candidate Donald Trump, also on X. On Tuesday the European Commission denied Breton had approval from its president Ursula von der Leyen to send the letter.

 

Quote

“The timing and the wording of the letter were neither co-ordinated or agreed with the president nor with the [commissioners],” it said. An EU official, who asked not to be named, said: “Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking.”

Amazing how these unelected folks let their power get to their heads...

 

He broke from the bureaucratic chain of command in an attempt to one-up Elon Musk (like I said, these guys hate him and will never understand him/entrepreneurs). It was a pretty egregious and ridiculous affront to the principle of free speech and even the EU could not defend it

 

Thierry KO'd in trying to take on Musk...

 

Edited September 16 by Dalal.Holdings

[Dalal.Holdings]

3 minutes ago, jouni1 said:

GDPR has made sure that companies that don't respect human rights when handling data are fined properly. I saw it personally in the case of Dropbox, which told users it was going to start using their stored data to train AI models, except for EU customers.

 

Of course it doesn't show up in business valuations in the short term. If that's the only measure of a successful law then I guess GDPR is a failure.

 

I didn't realize GDPR was saving the world and human rights. 

 

Maybe I need to read this 80 page report to understand better the benefits of more regulation:

 

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/641530/EPRS_STU(2020)641530_EN.pdf

[jouni1]

Just now, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

I didn't realize GDPR was saving the world and human rights. 

 

Maybe I need to read this 80 page report to understand better the benefits of more regulation:

 

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/641530/EPRS_STU(2020)641530_EN.pdf

I guess it's a given you think GDPR is unnecessary if your view is that corporations shouldn't be regulated (more).

[Dalal.Holdings]

Just now, jouni1 said:

I guess it's a given you think GDPR is unnecessary if your view is that corporations shouldn't be regulated (more).

 

Who gave them the power to regulate these corporations? Does democracy mean anything? I didn't vote for these clowns and I still have to click that I accept cookies on every website