TRENDING
A torrid time for tech heavyweights
Politics, much like Donald Trump’s angry tweets about Amazon, has hit the big tech stocks hard
It’s been a torrid few weeks for the Faangs — the acronym that describes heavyweight tech stocks Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google.The Faangs drove a period of handsome stock market growth with low volatility until January, after which a series of corrections caused their valuations to plummet and high volatility and bearish sentiment to return to the market.What is peculiar about this particular slump is its intersection with politics.Leading the downward charge was Facebook. It was found to have shared the private data of 50m users with Cambridge Analytica, which used this information to target potential voters in the US election and in the Brexit referendum.The implication is clear: if it weren’t for the manipulation enabled by Facebook, Donald Trump might not be US president and the UK might still be a grumpy member of the EU.Facebook stock was cut down to size as traders factored in tighter regulation and the strangulation of Facebook’s lucrative advertising model.Thi...
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