A critical difference between tech stocks today and tech stocks during the dotcom bubble

Earlier this month, the Nasdaq topped 5,000 for the first time since 2000.

This understandably gave some market watchers the chills because the dotcom bubble was bursting in 2000.

Now, there are many ways Nasdaq 5,000 is different this time around. Importantly, a larger percentage of the tech stocks investors are betting on today are actually profitable.

Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker illustrates this nicely in this chart of the percentage of tech companies with positive operating margins, which is the profits before interest and tax is taken out.

While around 90% of tech publicly-traded tech companies are profitable today, barely half of them were during the bubbliest parts of the dotcom bubble.

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