At the same time, a decline in interest rates increased the availability of capital.[14] The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which lowered the top marginal capital gains tax in the United States, also made people more willing to make more speculative investments.[15] Alan Greenspan, then-Chair of the Federal Reserve, allegedly fueled investments in the stock market by putting a positive spin on stock valuations.[16] The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was expected to result in many new technologies from which many people wanted to profit.[17] The bubble edit

As a result of these factors, many investors were eager to invest, at any valuation, in any dot-com company, especially if it had one of the Internet-related prefixes or a “.com” suffix in its name. Venture capital was easy to raise. Investment banks, which profited significantly from initial public offerings (IPO), fueled speculation and encouraged investment in technology.[18] A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices in the quaternary sector of the economy and confidence that the companies would turn future profits created an environment in which many investors were willing to overlook traditional metrics, such as the price–earnings ratio, and base confidence on technological advancements, leading to a stock market bubble.[16]