A growing number of companies are joining Tesla in the sky-high valuation club, dividing Wall Street between those warning of a “bubble” and those questioning traditional assumptions about how best to value a business.
Tesla was a red-hot stock even before the coronavirus crisis, boasting a forward price/earnings ratio — a common measure of the value the market puts on a business’s future profits — of 75 times at the start of 2020. That was the highest of any company worth more than $50bn, according to Bloomberg data.
But now that stocks have hit new record highs, and share prices and profits become increasingly detached, 29 big companies trade on even higher earnings multiples. Tesla itself has moved to 209 times expected earnings.