ZEENAT MOORAD: Technology heavyweights lose their bite
It’s been a horrid week for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet. Their combined market cap fell from $2.5-trillion in July to $1.93-trillion on Monday
It’s been a horrid week for the FANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet). Their combined market cap fell from $2.5-trillion in July to $1.93-trillion on Monday. Scratch that. With each company’s share price down between 14% and 24% in October, it’s been a horrid month for the high-growth, high-momentum quartet of stocks. They’re facing negativity that they won’t put out the kind of sales growth numbers needed to support the huge rally in their stocks. Remember that in the past few years, these stocks have made huge contributions to the S&P 500’s gains, so a prolonged downturn would spell disaster for the market — already stoked by anxiety over the Trump administration’s trade war with China. Out of interest, people betting against the FANG cohort made $1.6bn in paper profit last week. Data from financial technology company S3 Partners shows they were among the 10 most-shorted US stocks. Amazon’s numbers missed the mark and its shares tanked 8%. According to...
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