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Finance & economics
財經板塊
Buttonwood: The sock parallel
梧桐樹：股票和襪子差不多
Tech stocks have tanked. Are they now good value?
科技股大幅下挫。它們現在劃算嗎?
As any savvy shopper knows, there is a world of difference between a sale and a deal.
正如任何精明的顧客都知道的那樣，降價和劃算之間有著天壤之別。
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.
某樣東西有折扣并不意味著它值得購買--也許是最初的標價太高，或者折扣太小，或者只是這件東西的質量太差了。
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.
美國感恩節過后的11月25日是“黑色星期五”，在這場巨大的降價活動中購物的人會考慮到上述這類問題。
They are always on the minds of investors.
但投資者無時無刻都在考慮這些問題。
“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.
著名投資者沃倫·巴菲特曾開玩笑說：“無論我們談論的是襪子還是股票，我都喜歡在降價時購買優質商品?！?/p>
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，大多數股票價格都出現了下跌--美國股市的標準普爾500指數市值縮水了五分之一以上--但科技股的價格暴跌最為劇烈。
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發新一輪拋售之后，以科技股為主的納斯達克指數下跌了近三分之一。
Amazon, Netflix and Meta have this year shed a whopping 48%, 58% and 70% of their value.
亞馬遜、Netflix和Meta今年的市值分別暴跌了48%、58%和70%。
Such discounts mean tech stocks are certainly on sale.
這樣的“折扣”意味著科技股肯定在打折。
But are they a good deal?
但它們劃算嗎？
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.
評估一家公司的當前價格是否劃算的藝術，是所謂的價值投資者做的事，他們之所以獲得這個頭銜，是因為盡管基本面穩固，但他們仍在尋找其他投資者不喜歡的股票。
For much of the past decade, tech stocks have been an unattractive proposition to these parsimonious types.
在過去10年的大部分時間里，科技股對這些吝嗇的人來說一直是一個沒有吸引力的投資對象。
That is in part down to how value investors assess companies and in part to the characteristics of tech firms.
這部分歸因于價值投資者評估公司的方式，部分歸因于科技公司的特點。
The original value investor was Benjamin Graham, an academic and author, in whose footsteps Mr Buffett treads.
最初的價值投資者是學者兼作家本杰明·格雷厄姆，巴菲特正是追隨了他的腳步。
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.
格雷厄姆主要依賴于兩個衡量標準：一是股價與收益的比率，即將公司的市值與利潤進行比較；二是價格與賬面價值的比率，即將股價與房地產、設備和庫存等公司資產的價值進行比較。
For much of the past decade tech stocks have looked mighty expensive on these measures.
在過去10年的大部分時間里，按照這兩個衡量標準，科技股都顯得非常昂貴。
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、亞馬遜、蘋果、Meta和Netflix的股價平均為利潤的38倍和賬面價值的12倍。
The equivalent figures for the Russell 1000, a broad index of stocks, were 24 times earnings and four times book value.
而它們在羅素1000指數（一種廣泛應用的股指）中的數據分別為利潤的24倍，和賬面價值的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.
對于格雷厄姆而言，這兩組數據都談不上劃算：他喜歡市盈率低于15倍、股價低于1.5倍賬面價值的公司。
But tech’s multiples would have been particularly off-putting.
但科技股的數據尤其不夠格。
