"Looks like a healthy company" to who? Any businessperson worth their salt will look at operating cashflow, current/quick ratios, and P&L/income statement. It'

"Looks like a healthy company" to who? Any businessperson worth their salt will look at operating cashflow, current/quick ratios, and P&L/income statement. It's interesting, I think there's a lot of psychological parallels between the Japanese "lost decade" and these investors in the US. In both cases, large nonperforming assets (loans, or buildings) were held for a long time because the owners didn't want to admit defeat by selling at a big markdown -- in the case of the banks, due to capital requirements where a significant remarking of their assets might cause regulatory non-compliance. Valuing things is hard.