This week started off with very big moves among the Big Tech stocks on North America's markets, a dynamic which has continued throughout the week so far.
On Monday, Apple stock fell more than 2% in its worst trading session in almost three weeks after Bloomberg revealed the company’s plans to slow hiring and spending to cope with a potential economic downturn. Yesterday, Meta (previously Facebook) was in the news, with its CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating quite ruthlessly that the company will simply tell all of its employees that it 'does not need' to simply go home.
There are now some commentators who consider that the big tech stocks listed on New York's prominent exchanges have even further to fall.
Apple stock has decreased in value by a remarkable 17% during the course of 2022, and other large software giants and internet stalwarts such as Microsoft and Google (Alphabet) having fallen in value over a sustained period of time.
A point of interest with this otherwise gloomy outlook is that the declining nature of Apple stock is having a bearing on the total value of all big tech stocks.
The spread between the prospective earnings multiples of the S&P 500 Information Technology Sector and the benchmark S&P 500 started this year at the highest it had been since 2004, which is encouraging, and shows that perhaps a few of the giants which have been struggling to keep the value of their shares up have affected the entire outlook for big tech when in reality there are firms doing well.
Overall, however, the differential between the downturn in big tech stock values in New York and other stocks on prominent exchanges elsewhere is interesting.
London's FTSE 100, largely consisting of less tech-focused stocks and more on long-established, age-old blue chip companies in mining, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, finance, consumer retail and engineering industries, has been stable despite the United Kingdom's economic situation having reached a milestone inflation level which is now at its highest in 40 years.
It is apparent that many investors in the United Kingdom are looking for inflation-busting opportunities, and are taking a cautious approach, especially given that many London listed stocks are valued in Pounds and Pence, and at a time during which the governmental changes are creating uncertainty.
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