Earlier this year, commentators compared the frenzied buying of Internet stocks to the biotech bubbles of the early '80s and early '90s.
Every bubble does tend to resemble others before it.
Even so, each turns out to be unhappy in its own way. A major difference between biotechs and Internet outfits is that the best of the latter not only have a marketable product but also millions of daily or monthly customers. By contrast, even the most promising and talked about biotechs often can't be sure they even have a marketable product. But until a firm gets that nod from the FDA, it has neither a moat nor even a castle. What's worse, even so-called experts don't do so hot at predicting regulatory approval.