Happy aniversary, Nasdaq looks different 15 years after its pea

NEW YORJK: Happy anniversary, Nasdaq. It has been 15 years since the dot.com bubble peaked on March 10, 2000, and the Nasdaq composite index hit its lifetime intraday high of 5,132. Back then many of us were watching reality TV shows like "Survivor" and bidding up stocks of companies that had no earnings.

The index has not reached those heights since, though it briefly surpassed the 5,000 mark on March 2. It has since retreated.

These days, we are less focused on reality shows and more focused on reality - keeping tabs on dividends and price-earnings ratios, for example.

A lot has changed - Apple Inc wasn't even on the radar then. Now it's the most highly valued U.S. public company.

Here's a look at the Nasdaq, then and now.

Nasdaq value March 2015 March 2000

$8.01 trillion $6.6 trillion

Nasdaq P/E ratio March 2015 March 2000

20.75 189.7

No. of companies March 2015 March 1999

trading on Nasdaq

2,565 4,715

Top 10 Components March 10, 2015 March 10, 2000

by market cap

Apple $724.6 bln Microsoft $525.4 bln

Google $382.3 bln Cisco $466.4 bln

Microsoft $347.4 bln Intel $401.3 bln

Facebook $218.7 bln Oracle $232.4 bln

Amazon $171.9 bln Sun Micro.$164.5 bln

Intel $151.3 bln Dell $131.5 bln

Gilead $147.8 bln Qualcomm $96.4 bln

Cisco $147.2 bln Yahoo $93.7 bln

Comcast $125.8 bln Applied Materials $74.6 bln

Qualcomm $119.3 bln JDS Uniphase $68.9 bln

No of stocks trading March 10, 2015 March 10, 2000

at $100 or higher 73 210

No of Nasdaq IPOs in 2014 1999

previous year 189 397

Biggest Nasdaq IPO 2014 1999

JD.com Inc $2.05 bln Charter Comms. $3.7 bln

Percentage of Nasdaq March 9, 2015 2000

cos in tech industry 43 pct 64.9 pct

Dividend payouts by 2014 2000

Nasdaq cos $77.98 bln $14.14 bln

Best Picture Oscar 2015 2000

winner Birdman American Beauty

Top rated TV shows March 2-8 2015 1999-2000

The Big Bang Theory Survivor

No 1 song:

Billboard Top 100 Week of March 14 2015 March 4 - March 11, 2000

"Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson "Amazed" by Lonestar

Data from Nasdaq, Reuters data, Nielsen, Billboard- Reuters