What do you remember? The dotcom boom perhaps?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble. Technically, the dotcom boom began in 1994 and finished in the year 2000. I was 30 years old in 1994, and 36 in the year 2000.

You may also remember in 1999 several Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ipos-shatter-records-in-1999. A record number (510 companies) launched themselves and their equity on the stock market raised, back then, a staggering $66bn. I wonder where they are all now? This is worth studying, as the dotcom failure rate is close to 99%.

When we jump back to 2019, we see already more than 500 IPOs in the worldwide market:

https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/ey-global-ipo-trends-q2-2019/$FILE/ey-global-ipo-trends-q2-2019.pdf , and record amounts of new capital being raised to back these new platforms and ideas.

So, what is happening here? The news makes us wonder

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/28/ipos-have-their-best-quarter-in-years-in-terms-of-performance-and-capital-raised.html

Is there something familiar happening? Have we seen all this before? Is history repeating itself or, at least, rhyming? None of us knows, but many of us sense that something equivalent to back then (1999) is happening once again. The ‘Power of Weak Signals’:

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-to-make-sense-of-weak-signals/

Dotcom is no longer the phrase of the moment, now that we have AI, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Climate Change, Crypto, Cybersecurity, FinTech and SaaS. Even social media is a passé phrase today. Most of these new buzzwords, few of us understand. Alongside these new ideas, platforms and start-ups we have a new workplace, which many of the millennials hold in their hearts as a place to aspire to work - namely WeWork, itself with more than 500 locations worldwide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeWork

But somehow, we know something is wrong at WeWork, which is a property company painted with ‘go-faster’ technology stripes. It’s not a tech company but thinks it is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49723246

WeWork’s valuation has fallen 80% since January and whilst $47bn is way too high, is $10bn too low? The more you study the WeWork S1 filing for its IPO, the more you think something just doesn’t seem right here:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519220499/d781982ds1.htm, and here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/15/20806366/we-company-wework-ipo-adam-neumann

So, if we return to 1999, everything was ‘rosy’ with dotcom and everyone was to be a millionaire - compared with 2019 when everyone is to be a billionaire!

Let’s look back then at when the UK market peaked (30th, December 1999) with the FTSE100 reaching 6950 -  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/11432504/FTSE-100-breaks-1999-record-to-hit-all-time-high.html

A number not to be seen again until 2015. Did it take the FTSE100 fifteen years to recover from the dotcom crash? Perhaps.

The FTSE100 is primarily an international index of companies where 75% of income comes from global markets outside the UK. This makes it a good average, a good yardstick to feel where global markets reside. With more than two trillion pounds of market cap it represents a fair share of the £67 trillion global GDP market, at almost 3%:

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/stock-market-summary/ftse-100

 So, where does all this leave us with 2020 fast approaching? Is there some kind of tech correction coming? When we examine Bitcoin 2009, is this the equivalent of World Wide Web 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee? Was the Ethereum 2015 ICO like the Netscape IPO 1995?

In 1998, Amazon stock collapsed at 90%: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/18/dotcom-bubble-amazon-stock-lost-more-than-90percent-long-term-investors-still-got-rich.html.

In 2018, the so-called Cryptos on the Blockchain also ‘tanked’: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/unsustainable-crypto-startup-funding-bubble-burst-080005455.html

It all looks very familiar territory, doesn’t it? So, if 2020 is the year 2000, what happens next?

Old clues from 2011 suggest 2020-2022 is going to be a tough period:

https://www.businessinsider.com/beyond-the-false-dawn-global-crisis-2020-2022-2011-2?IR=T. And this time 2020-2022 will see the meteoric rise of an alternative investment asset, like Bitcoin, and some of its peers:

https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1173936423466098688?s=20

New unusual technology grows in bad times, and 2020-2022 will be the consideration years for crypto and blockchain, https://coinmarketcap.com/, with mainstream investments occurring in the 2023-2026 period.

So, do we expect the equivalent of a dotcom bust in the 2020-2022 timeframe? Will something like this occur?: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dotcom-bubble.asp

“During the dotcom bubble, the value of equity markets grew exponentially, with the technology-dominated Nasdaq index rising from under 1,000 to more than 5,000 between the years 1995 and 2000. In 2001 and through 2002 the bubble burst, with equities entering a bear market”, and, “By the end of 2001, most dotcom stocks had gone bust. Even the share prices of blue-chip technology stocks like Cisco, Intel and Oracle lost more than 80% of their value. It would take 15 years for the Nasdaq to regain its dot-com peak, which it did on April 23, 2015”.

Read through it again, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dotcom-bubble.asp

and consider for a moment that 2019 is 1999, and thus 2020 could be ‘The Year 2000’ all over again. History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/

 Mark Twain, perhaps?

Indeed, according to GSM Intelligence (which monitors 1,400 telecom networks globally), there are 5.1 billion mobile subscriptions and 9.2 billion connections - yet the United Nations states the total world population is only 7.1 billion.

However, Apple is sitting on a cash pile of over $200 billion, which is equal to that of the world’s two largest hedge funds — Bridgewater Associates and AQM Capital Management — combined. Apple has 1 billion customers globally and, to date, has sold over 1.4 billion iPhone devices worldwide – giving it a huge scale and international distribution. It has also been reported by the FT that Apple has 420 million monthly subscribers  - Apple Music has overtaken Spotify, iCloud services and Apple TV (which has just had a relaunch). The subscription is going to be available for only $4.99 per month.

So, why would Apple wish to get involved in the financial services sector? Apple Pay was launched back in October 2014 and is available on 900 million iPhones worldwide, but only 43% (383 million people) are using it. However, it is currently available in 24 countries, being accessible to more potential users who follow the BNP Paribas Fortis’ alliance. Apple Card, too, has recently been launched (August 2019) and the credit card is available in a digital format, coming in as a titanium card which offers cashback of 3% if you buy Apple products. The card has built-in digital and facial recognition security and has been launched in conjunction with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard - interestingly promoting that customers’ data, in terms of their spending patterns and history, will not be stored or divulged. In a recent article from Forbes, it was calculated that if Apple were to receive just 20% of the likely revenue generated by the Apple Card then, by 2022, an additional $1.1 billion revenue could be generated for Apple. However, being in partnership with Goldman Sachs. Apple is also active in Asia  - it has been offering finance in China, teaming up with Alibaba to offer interest-free credit to buy an iPhone.

By 2022 the financial services sector is predicted to grow to $26.5 trillion (a CAGR 5.9%) and interestingly Accenture has found that, of 18-34 year old’s, “80% are interested in integrated propositions from financial providers and non-financial vendors and 87% of them state that their mobile devices are their principal device for transacting online. So, who better to turn to than a well-known global brand such as Apple?

The world economy is increasingly turning digital and mobile, which Apple (to a great extent) has enabled and encouraged with its iPhone, iPad and Mac, etc. So, it is no surprise that Apple filed a patent, back in 2009, which was granted in 2014 to use tokenisation on Apple’s devices. Was this little-known interest in tokenisation due to Jennifer Bailey, Vice President of Apple Pay, who recently told CNN “We’re watching cryptocurrency, we think it is interesting. We think it has long-term potential”.

Apple Tokens - If used by their 420 million monthly subscribers, it would potentially enable Apple to by-pass the banks and their omnipresent fees. Furthermore, using a digital currency within the Apple ecosystem, cash could be transferred around the world instantaneously (like IBM is doing with Stellar), almost without cost.