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164 points Anon84 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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duttish ◴[] No.46189143[source]
I'll throw the British South Sea Trading Company into the ring for that title of most overvalued company ever.

It had the king himself on the board. The company value represented a decent fraction of the national gdp at the time. All without actually never producing anything of actual value. It was just bribes and speculation all the way through. It's wild.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company

Extra History did a more easily digestible series, which was how I learned about it in the first place. https://youtu.be/k1kndKWJKB8

replies(2): >>46189620 #>>46190588 #
petesergeant ◴[] No.46189620[source]
> The company value represented a decent fraction of the national gdp at the time.

The company's market-cap was almost 3 times national GDP

replies(2): >>46189649 #>>46189694 #
maratc ◴[] No.46189694[source]
We should stop comparing incomparable things, like companies market cap (measured in dollars or pounds) to national GDPs (measured in dollars or pounds per year,) unless we want to reach outrageous but incorrect conclusions.
replies(6): >>46189775 #>>46190068 #>>46190803 #>>46190813 #>>46191254 #>>46191765 #
1. Jeff_Brown ◴[] No.46191254{3}[source]
Comparing stocks to Flo's is perfectly meaningful. It's often done when comparing, for instance, the price of a house to one's yearly salary.
replies(1): >>46191902 #
2. testrun ◴[] No.46191902[source]
That makes no sense. House price/salary is used to compare payment periods or affordability. The context is important. Share value and GDP are totally different things and there is no direct relationship.