There is nothing like an economic crisis to bring highly valued technology stocks back to earth. The flight to quality that follows usually hurts companies with stretched valuations the most, as investors worry about a collapse in the growth rates that have supported their high prices.
But for software companies at least, the coronavirus shutdown is not turning out to be one of those crises. Already at sky-high levels, software shares have proved more resilient than the overall stock market — and in some cases are rising to new records.
Investors accustomed to looking to history as a guide have had to think again. In the meltdown that followed the 2008 financial crisis, the revenue multiples on software stocks contracted by 75 per cent. This time, according to Goldman Sachs, they had fallen back only about 30 per cent by the time the market bottomed in the middle of March — before a rebound over the next three weeks that saw them expand again by 18 per cent.