Wile E. Coyote Moment as Tech Goes Off the Cliff
The FANGs are responding to gravity at last as investors return to the basics of cash flow and balance sheet analysis.
Little did animator Chuck Jones know he was creating an investing icon.
Photographer: Ethan Miller/Getty
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There is no character in the entire canon of world literature and drama more useful for explaining markets than Wile E. Coyote. In the Roadrunner cartoons, he would run off the edge of a cliff, and continue running into midair. Only once he stopped, looked down, and realized that he was in midair, did he fall. He thus gave the market the invaluable concept of a Wile E. Coyote moment, when investors realize they’ve been running without support for a long time, and prices that should have long since been gradually coming down suddenly collapse.