Source: The Seattle Times
On Friday, Amazon.com Inc witnessed a miserable collapse of its shares with a loss in market value. This loss ranks as one of the worst in the history of Wall Street, post it giving an outlook that was visibly rather disappointing. The stock dropped 14% in its largest one day drop since July in the year 2006, with shares closing at the lowest level since June 2020. Reportedly, the selloff scratched out $206.2 billion off the market valuation of Amazon.com Inc. Apparently, only Meta Platforms has exceeded this wipeout, shedding around $251.3 billion in market value post its miserable report in February.
The latest hit this season was the collapse that US stock market faced, coming under intense pressure in April. This was at the time of a thunderous earnings season, along with concerns over the Federal Reserve Policy. On Friday, Nasdaq 100 index dropped 4.5%, bring its April fall to 13%, coming forward as its largest one month drop since October 2008.
“People are coming to the realization that the easy money is over. There are concerns about rates going higher, about Covid, the war, and now you’re seeing weakness in the tech titans that led everything up for so long.”- Michael Matousek.
For the month, the retail giant fell 24%, its largest one-month percentage fall since November 2008. Similarly, Alphabet also dropped 18% this month, marking its worst since November 2008. Earlier this week, it had reported weak first quarter revenue. Moreover, other techs such as Apple dropped 9.7%, its largest one month fall since September of 2020. Its shares dropped 3.7% this week, following its results report. Additionally, they had warned about the effect that supply limitations would essentially have on revenue. Moreover, even companies reporting good results came under this widespread loss in April for tech giants.
Microsoft Corp. reportedly dropped 10% in April, again its worst one month drop since January of 2015. This was even post them reporting results that appeared just as strong. Additionally, Facebook parent Meta fell 9.8% this months, that too with a big rise in the wake of results a day before its drop.
Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist at Allianz Investment Management commented on the situation in emails. He said how increasing cost pressures, along with uncertain outlooks from the biggest techs have ‘agitated’ investors into the weekend. Moreover, he said, that they are possibly uncomfortable any time soon with the Fed widely expected to give a 50 basis point hike, and a ‘hawkish message’ coming week.
