Diller v. Malone: The Truth Behind the Trash Talk

Barry Diller and John Malone don't see eye-to-eye. But do they live in different universes?

On day one of their courtroom showdown yesterday, Malone said that IAC, which Diller runs, has "lagged seriously behind the Nasdaq and other indexes" since 2000.

But in a memo to employees on Sunday, Diller said that IAC's stock price rose 180 percent between 1995 and December 2007, "outpac[ing] the Nasdaq composite index and the S&P 500."

Who's right? Actually, they both are -- although Malone can be accused of exaggerating a little.

Diller's preferred timeframe, starting in 1995, starts just before the peak years of the tech boom, while Malone's starts at the boom's highest point, although he didn't specify a particular point in 2000.

If one looks at the performance of IAC versus the Nasdaq beginning on Feb. 7, 2000 -- the day IAC achieved its highest closing price for the year -- then IAC is down 39.43 percent since then, adjusting for splits and dividends, while the Nasdaq is down 38.63 percent.

If you make the same comparison using Dec. 31, 2000, as your starting date, however, IAC comes off somewhat worse: It's down 10.98 percent since then, versus 7.36 percent for the Nasdaq.

In either case, IAC has indeed lagged the Nasdaq -- but whether it has "seriously" lagged is a matter of opinion.

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Thanks to my colleague Zubin Jelveh for crunching and charting the numbers.