Dot-com Bubble

The Dot-com Bubble was a speculative run-up in United States technology and Internet-related stock valuations running from the mid-1990s into 2000-2002. Home computer ownership in the United States climbed from 15 percent of households in 1990 to 35 percent by 1997, and at the height of the boom a promising dot-com company could go public through an initial public offering and raise substantial capital even without ever having turned a profit. On December 5, 1996, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned, in a speech titled The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society, that irrational exuberance had unduly escalated asset values, a remark that briefly rattled markets worldwide. The Nasdaq Composite nonetheless continued climbing until it peaked at 5,048.62 on Friday, March 10, 2000, then collapsed; by the time the bust had run its course, most Internet stocks had lost 75 percent of their value from their highs, wiping out roughly 1.755 trillion dollars, and only about 48 percent of dot-com companies were still operating, at much reduced valuations, by 2004.