Hatred and Jealousy, page-49

Intangible companies are also different and more complex to measure using traditional auditing techniques.
Can all people easily understand bitcoin? block Chain? Is it only the receipting system that were causing the increases?

Read how curiously Amazon share price rockets though it’s material wealth does not?

I think ASIC and ASX May come to realise that there is more happening with intangible companies. The traditional system may not suffice.

Haskel and Westlake wrote that "the rise of intangibles might be expected to increase inequality both of wealth and income. Increasingly intangible-intensive firms will need better staff to create synergy with their other intangible assets. Firms will screen them more thoroughly and pay them more handsomely."

In other words, the authors contend the spectacular growth in intangible investment has been partly responsible for Donald Trump, Brexit and Italy's Five Star movement.

They believe that the supporters of these popular movements hold traditional views and find it difficult to accept the changes resulting from the growth of intangible-intensive firms.

Several academics, including Feng Gu and Baruch Lev, who published the book The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers, are arguing that the growth in intangible investments should be leading to a different investment approach.

In their paper, "Time to Change Your Investment Model" published in the Financial Analysts Journal, they contend that "accounting regulators were — and still are — asleep at the wheel, treating the value-creating intangible investments as regular expenses".

The expensing of intangible investment has reduced the earnings of these companies even though this investment may create huge shareholder value in the long term.

Thus, companies that invest heavily in intangibles are being penalised by earnings-focused investors while companies that don't invest in this area are treated more favourably.

Gu and Lev argue: "GAAP-based reported earnings no longer reflect the periodic value changes (growth) of most business enterprises, and thus conventional earnings-based security analysis has lost much of its usefulness for investors in recent years".

This comment partly explains why Amazon's share price continues to rise even though its earnings growth has been relatively modest.

Gu and Lev write: "we assert that a shift of focus for security analysis and valuation is called for — from the prediction of earnings or related accounting measures to a comprehensive evaluation of an enterprise's competitive advantage through a careful consideration of its operating strategic assets and their deployment".

This assessment would include:

• Carefully measuring a company's strategic intangible assets
• Assessing whether a company is enhancing and defending its strategic assets
• Questioning whether these assets are being optimally deployed to create maximum value.

The change in US sharemarket leadership to Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook clearly demonstrates that intangible investing, brand strength and a dominant market position has enabled these companies to create value for consumers and investors.

Only time will tell whether these companies can defend their strategic position and generate sufficient earnings to satisfy investors who look at companies from an earnings perspective, as well as a competitive advantage position.