How can 1 US company be worth more than the top 350 UK companies?

Hoenir

sheenas said:

It all in who is valuing the companies. 

Us. The people who buy and sell the shares either directly or indirectly through the investing we undertake or the savings we make.  Supply and Demand drives price momentum. 

Pathfinder000

I would say the US is a bigger country, has more talent available and way more money and innovation.  That is pretty much the reason they are bigger.  Also they are tech companies.  The UK really can't compete at the same levels, also the fact we are a small country, without any real money and a slowly sinking economy.  Then add in an anti business government and the fact we are losing all the big companies due to government policies.  The list just goes on and on.

I have a friend (from Uni) in the US that used to work for Nvidia.  He said the competition for any job was steep.  You would have 100 people, all with high end degrees, masters and possibly Ph.D level, trying to get those jobs.  The company paid top notch levels for the talent and no expense was spared, because they knew keeping those employees happy meant better quality work, more innovation, good employee morale.  Compare that to people working at a high end UK tech company.  

I admit I had to think hard and do research because I don't think we have any companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and guess what, we don't have any top tier tech companies in this country.  That's the rub I guess.  We can't attract talent of that level, we have no real companies of that level (except maybe ARM) and they really aren't in the same league as say Nvidia or Apple.

SneakySpectator

Pathfinder000 said:

I would say the US is a bigger country, has more talent available and way more money and innovation.  That is pretty much the reason they are bigger.  Also they are tech companies.  The UK really can't compete at the same levels, also the fact we are a small country, without any real money and a slowly sinking economy.  Then add in an anti business government and the fact we are losing all the big companies due to government policies.  The list just goes on and on.

I have a friend (from Uni) in the US that used to work for Nvidia.  He said the competition for any job was steep.  You would have 100 people, all with high end degrees, masters and possibly Ph.D level, trying to get those jobs.  The company paid top notch levels for the talent and no expense was spared, because they knew keeping those employees happy meant better quality work, more innovation, good employee morale.  Compare that to people working at a high end UK tech company.  

I admit I had to think hard and do research because I don't think we have any companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and guess what, we don't have any top tier tech companies in this country.  That's the rub I guess.  We can't attract talent of that level, we have no real companies of that level (except maybe ARM) and they really aren't in the same league as say Nvidia or Apple.

We are supposedly one of the financial capitals of the world so raising capital shouldn't be a problem, but it is.

We have some of the best universities in the world where people flock from all over the world fighting to get a place, yet that doesn't seem to translate to tech start ups. 

Why our government is so anti capitalist / anti business is baffling to me. They really should just stand back and let our businesses flourish. 

The only tech company we have is ARM but once the open source free to use RISC-V architecture is fleshed out ARM will probably end up obsolete. We have a couple companies like Relx and Sage but yeah it's pretty dead on the island nowadays. Just Turkish barbers, vape shops, takeaways, nail salons, pubs and off licences. 

Oh and banks, oils, insurance and pharma. 

GeoffTF

sheenas said:

It all in who is valuing the companies. If these companies were on a uk stock market then their value would be a 10th of the us value.

That is complete nonsense. See above.

LHW99

I sort of feel there is also a culture around arts and sport that trumpets the attitude - these are so important for everyon'e life, wealth and happiness and "scientists" [unspecified] are baddies that make terrible things happen in the world.

Then you get what can be a particularly toxic culture in some industries whereby there is too much micromanagement, and a Government attitude of "blue sky research is useless it doesn't have any relevance to current social problems".

It all adds up to many years of undermining people's attitudes to taking on risk, whether that be not supporting in-company scientific work, failing to encourage those who don't appreciate spending time in endless meetings to contribute in other ways, or generally not presenting scientific topics as interesting and worth while for everyone to understand.

Without an atmosphere that encourages scientific enquiry and technical abilities generally we likely won't be able to foster the growth of even those few tech-based start ups that are successful. Then you have our ability to let any and every type of smaller UK company be sold to overseas financers because raising capital here isn't a simple process.

Hoenir

SneakySpectator said:

We are supposedly one of the financial capitals of the world so raising capital shouldn't be a problem, but it is.

Many "investors" currently speculate. Focussed on achieving the highest gain in the shortest time on their money.  The USA has drawn the capital in as a result. Arguably inefficiently.  As all the companies do is repurchase their own shares. Creating a self fulfilling upward loop in the share price. 

Middle_of_the_Road

masonic said:

Perhaps they are overvalued.

No doubt some are. Would like to know how these two companies are valued 

Tesla ~ $1 tn
Ford ~ $40 bn

Hoenir

Middle_of_the_Road said:

masonic said:

Perhaps they are overvalued.

No doubt some are. Would like to know how these two companies are valued 

Tesla ~ $1 tn
Ford ~ $40 bn

That's the power of passive index tracking. Buy the market. There's no price discovery. 

InvesterJones

Middle_of_the_Road said:

masonic said:

Perhaps they are overvalued.

No doubt some are. Would like to know how these two companies are valued 

Tesla ~ $1 tn
Ford ~ $40 bn

It's certainly hard to ascertain the opinion of the entire investing world that results in that consensus, but it was probably (fear of) the Kodak effect.

boingy

Middle_of_the_Road said:

masonic said:

Perhaps they are overvalued.

No doubt some are. Would like to know how these two companies are valued 

Tesla ~ $1 tn
Ford ~ $40 bn

One makes cars that people want.
One is wondering how to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving marketplace (and they are far from alone).