Dot-Com Bubble

What you'll learn

• ✓Spot a bubble pattern

Lessons

1. 🧦
   The Sock Puppet

   Pets.com, the Super Bowl, and a nine-month death
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2. The Real Revolution

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3. Eyeballs and Burn

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4. The Fall

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5. Final Boss: Survivors and Echoes

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Sources

All content is drawn from the sources below. We deliberately avoid unverified material.

• dot.con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold (2002)
  John Cassidy, HarperCollins · book
  Standard journalistic account of the bubble. Source for the Pets.com timeline, Webvan, Boo.com, and the analyst-banker conflicts of interest, used across lessons 1, 3, and 5.
• The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society (speech, December 5, 1996)
  Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Board / American Enterprise Institute · institutional
  Origin of the phrase 'irrational exuberance'. Used in lesson 4 to date the warning more than three years before the peak.
  https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/1996/19961205.htm
• Irrational Exuberance (2000, first edition)
  Robert J. Shiller, Princeton University Press · book
  Published in March 2000, days before the Nasdaq peak. Source for the valuation and behavioral evidence underlying the bubble framing in lesson 4.
• Origins of the Crash: The Great Bubble and Its Undoing (2004)
  Roger Lowenstein, Penguin · book
  Source for Cisco's market-cap peak and 89 percent drawdown, Amazon's roughly 94 percent drawdown, and the broader analyst-banker conduct narrative. Used in lessons 2 and 4.
• DotCom Mania: The Rise and Fall of Internet Stock Prices (2003)
  Eli Ofek and Matthew Richardson, NBER Working Paper 9085 / Journal of Finance · academic
  Empirical evidence on lockup expirations and short-sale constraints during the bubble's unwind. Used in lesson 4.
  https://www.nber.org/papers/w9085
• FRED Economic Data: Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQCOM)
  Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis · data
  Primary data source for the March 10, 2000 peak (5,048.62) and the October 9, 2002 close (1,114.11). Used across lessons 1, 4, and 5.
  https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NASDAQCOM
• A Nation Online: How Americans Are Expanding Their Use of the Internet (2002)
  National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), US Department of Commerce · institutional
  Source for US internet adoption rising from roughly 5 percent in 1995 to roughly 50 percent by 2002. Used in lesson 2.
  https://www.ntia.gov/report/2002/nation-online-how-americans-are-expanding-their-use-internet
• Global Research Analyst Settlement (2003) and related enforcement actions
  US Securities and Exchange Commission, NASD, and New York Attorney General · institutional
  Source for Henry Blodget, Mary Meeker, and Frank Quattrone era investigations and the structural reforms separating research from investment banking. Used in lesson 4.
  https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-54.htm
• SEC Staff Statement on Accounting and Reporting Considerations for Warrants Issued by SPACs (April 12, 2021)
  US Securities and Exchange Commission · institutional
  Used in lesson 5 to date the SEC's response to the 2021 SPAC mania, the modern echo of dot-com behavior.
  https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/accounting-reporting-warrants-issued-spacs