These same guys will be touting these same companies…

This article from The Tell here on Marketwatch by my friend David Weidner confuses me – “Did Facebook owners overpay? Some 75% of investment bankers surveyed say the valuations of pre-IPO private companies are excessive.”

I mean, is it supposed to be a bearish thing for Facebook and the other pre-IPO companies that a bunch of investment bankers think they’re excessively valued?

Or, given that these same idiot investment bankers would have said that the trillions of dollars of subprime mortgage securities they created were great investments, maybe it’s extremely bullish that they think the new wave of tech companies coming public are way overvalued.

And of course, these same guys will be touting these same companies they lament as overvalued when taking a confidential poll when these companies come public in coming months and quarters.

The fact is that I wouldn’t necessarily disagree that many of these pre-IPO companies are way overvalued.  Remember for weeks when I kept pleading with people to “Run run from RenRen?” after it came public at a wild valuation despite accounting questions?  And I suggested to my subscribers at TradingWithCody.com to try to get short LNKD back when it was above $100.

But that doesn’t mean that these wild valuations won’t eventually get wilder, especially for the ever-hyped Facebook and Twitter.  But there’s likely no stopping this app/smartphone/tablet/cloud bubble that’s still getting inflated with these same companies being brought public at much higher valuations by the same guys who are currently complaining about the valuations.

And hey, it’s not like Apple, Google and Microsoft are at some outrageous valuations themselves.  But as their own multiples expand in coming months and quarters, they will provide cover for these wild valuations.

Maybe that article doesn’t confuse but just confirms after all.