Hollywood Starts with Animation

March 1, 2000.

America Online (AOL), the largest Internet new media in the new era, and Time Warner Group, the largest traditional media company, have officially merged.

This merger was initiated by AOL as the main body. In the form of cash and shares, the total purchase price was as high as 181 billion US dollars.

This is the largest merger and acquisition case in the history of the United States and even the world!

All forms of media are integrated into the world's largest media company.

Both the media industry and the network industry are generally optimistic about this mode of combining old and new media.

It is generally believed that Internet companies need attractive content, while traditional media need the Internet, the most potential new media platform in the 21st century. The merger of AOL and Time Warner represents the future development direction of the media industry: channel service providers The combination with content providers means the possibility of integrating traditional and modern industries.

However... a seemingly bright future has been replaced by a tortuous path to merger.

Before the merger was announced in February 2000, AOL's stock was trading at $73 a share and Time Warner's at $64.

A month later......

That is, as of March 1, Time Warner's stock price rose to $81, while AOL's stock price fell to $58.

This differentiated performance surprised many people.

"how can that be?"

"Yes, the stock market performance of the two companies is far below market expectations."

"I don't know if you have found it? In February, Internet stocks, technology stocks, and new media stocks were hard to find in the market. But now? There are a lot of tradable stocks, and people who buy them But it's much lower than what it was in February."

"Why is the difference before and after so huge?"

Many found it unusual.

That's right, this is the choice of many Wall Street investment institutions to sell stocks!

Zucker is waiting for the financial reports of major listed companies to come out. In fact, the major investment banks on Wall Street are also watching.

Compared with individual investors and small investment banks,

Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch, which are among the top five investment banks on Wall Street, have very broad sources of information and can obtain inside information that many people cannot know.

"I'm going to suffer~"

"The profit and loss performance of many Nasnaq listed companies is far from their current market value."

"That is to say, the amount of water injected here is too high, many times higher than the critical line~

As the top five investment banks on Wall Street, they were keenly aware of the dangers of Nasdaq and began to sell a batch of stocks first. As a result, the number of tradable shares on the market is much higher than the demand for purchases.

Gale Capital.

"Boss, did you see it?"

"AOL's stock price has fallen a lot recently."

"Even AOL-Time Warner, the world's largest media company newly formed after the merger, has its share price hovering between $39 and $45, far below the market's expectations."

Andy Chelop plays with flavor.

Zucker nodded solemnly.

Andy continued: "Perhaps the combination of the two old and new media is itself a case of failure."

Hearing this, Zhu Ke's dignified face also showed a smile: "You are right, I also think the merger of the two companies is the biggest failure."

you do not say.

According to Zu Ke's foresight as a traveler, he knew how miserable the two companies would be in the future.

On March 3, 2002, AOL-Time Warner's fiscal annual report announced that there was a huge loss of 54.2 billion U.S. dollars, setting a record for the highest quarterly loss in U.S. history;

At the end of 2002, the loss was as high as 98.7 billion US dollars, equivalent to the combined GDP of Chile and Vietnam.

"Tsk tsk tsk~"

Zucker couldn't help but stunned in his heart: "I have pried away "Harry Potter" now, and it is estimated that Warner's life will be even more difficult."

In the early years of 2000, Warner was in chaos from top to bottom because of its failed mergers and acquisitions, and it almost relied on "Harry Potter" to support it.

......

Time to enter March.

AOL shares fell;

Internet giants such as Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, and IBM have been affected by antitrust investigations and face the danger of being split;

The five major investment banks on Wall Street began to selectively sell a batch of stocks;

The number of outstanding shares on the market is much higher than in January and February;

All of the above have caused the Nasdaq stock market to fluctuate slightly after entering March. However, even if the negative reports increased, it failed to stop the continuous rise of the Nasdaq index. Refresh history.

On March 1, the Nasdaq reached 4,810;

On March 2, the Nasdaq reached 4852;

On March 3, the Nasdaq reached 4,879;

Refreshing history again and again has made countless investors even more crazy.

"Making money", "getting rich", "buying Internet stocks", etc., have become daily topics discussed by American citizens recently.

But!

But on March 4th, something changed.

- e-toys (e-toys), announced the last quarter's financial data.

It is a well-known online toy sales company, established in 1997, its main business is to sell various toys through its own website.

During the Internet boom in 1999, the company's stock was listed on the Nasdaq, and its total market value reached $8 billion at the opening, which greatly exceeded the $6 billion of the long-established toy company R-toys (R-toys). The market value shocked the entire industry.

However......

In fact, R-Toys' operating performance is much higher than the former.

In 1998, the sales of the former was only a mere $30 million, while the latter was as high as $11.2 billion, almost 400 times that of the former. In terms of profitability, the former lost 28.6 million U.S. dollars in 1998, while the latter made a profit of 376 million U.S. dollars.

The fundamentals of the two are so different, but the stock price is in an upside-down trend. …

On this day, as a Nasdaq-listed company, e-toys is obliged to announce the last quarter's financial report data to shareholders across the United States.

Revenue in the previous quarter was $10.1 million;

Did you make money?

Earn a fart!

Can't help but fail to make money. In the last quarter, e-Toys lost US$88 million, which was several times higher than the US$28.6 million loss in 1998.

"This, this, this... This performance is too bad!"

The poor performance of e-Toys really surprised many people.

"As far as this performance is concerned, let alone the market value of nearly 10 billion US dollars, it is not even worth 100 million US dollars!" An investor who bought the stock of e-Toys with a lot of money showed despair.

Everyone has made a fact clear - the e-Toys company is going to suffer, it's going to end!

Sure enough, the stock of e-Toys on that day suffered massive sell-offs from investment institutions and investors.

Stock price avalanche!

In contrast, the Nasdaq index has not been greatly affected.

However, as one company after another listed on the Nasdaq announced the last quarter's financial report, many people suddenly became confused.

Loss!

Loss!

Still a loss!

Even Yahoo, the Internet portal's top player, posted far below expectations, posting a profit of just $14 million last quarter.

This profit seems to be okay, but don't forget, Yahoo's market value is more than 43 billion US dollars!

Its profitability is far from worthy of its $43 billion market cap.

"The market value is too high?!"

Suddenly, this word popped up in many people's minds.

On March 9, the Nasdaq broke the 5,000-point mark;

On March 11, it created a record of 5048.6 points.

"Whoo~"

Many people breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile: "Although the performance of many listed companies is far below market expectations, the Nasdaq is still relatively strong. No, it has broken through the 5,000-point index."

However, the major investment institutions on Wall Street were not delighted by the dizzy investors, but instead shouted to death one by one!

"No, the stock market is going to crash!"

"Today is Friday, and the stock market reopens on Monday. I hope there will be good news in these two days, otherwise...otherwise...there will definitely be a large number of people and investment companies, and it will be over!!!"

The executives of many investment institutions are in a cold sweat.

The severity of the situation completely exceeded their expectations.

The real market value of a company should be only about 100 million US dollars, but it has been hyped by the times to have a market value of billions or tens of billions of dollars;

In just a few years, the Nasdaq broke the 5,000-point mark in one fell swoop;

In 1999 alone, the number of Internet companies listed on Nasdaq exceeded that of the previous decade combined.

All kinds of things, coupled with the recent financial reports of major companies have been released one after another, and the bad information has turned Nasdaq into a huge powder keg that will explode at any time.

"Hopefully everything goes well when Monday, March 13 comes, otherwise... it will surely lead to a major event that will shock the world."

The bad premonition is like a huge dark cloud, covering the hearts of many people.

" "The second is sent.