And now it’s all down to Apple after the big sell-off in US tech stocks continued for a third session on Monday as investor concern about the sustainability of the megatechs to sustain their momentum.
Apple is due to release its June quarter results after trading ends in the US Tuesday (after 6am Sydney time on Wednesday).
As we have been pointing out the results of the megatechs like Netflix (poor), Amazon (very good), Microsoft (very good), Facebook (very weak and will get weaker), Alphabet (Google, good) will determine the sustainability of the present momentum on Wall Street.
Netflix and Facebook have disappointed investors in a big way – especially the latter which has shown signs of reaching its capacity (2.4 billion monthly users). Amazon and Microsoft did very well, but those results have not been enough to alter the selling pressure that seems to emerging in these giant tech stock whose solid price rises this year so far have kept wall Street buoyant and positive.
Now it’s all down to Apple and the feeling is that while it won’t disappoint (with hints expected about the new iPhone due later this year), its news will not be enough to halt the slide.
The slide on Monday saw Nasdaq ended with a loss of more than 1% for the third session in a row, as the tech sell-off that has extended into the another week.
The tech-heavy index shed 107.72 points, or 1.39%, on Monday, as the giant tech stocks like Facebook, Twitter and Netflix absorbed another round of losses.
The fall also the S&P 500, which ended 16.5 points, or 0.6%, lower, with the tech sector seeing the biggest losses.
The Dow fell 142.8 points, or nearly 0.6%.
Facebook shares fell 2.2% on Monday, Apple shares were half a per cent lower, Amazon shed 2.1%, Netflix – more than 5% and Alphabet shares fell 1.5%. In fact facebook shares are now down more than 20% from the highs reached last Wednesday, only hours it released its results after trading the same day.
With just one more day’s trading left the sell off will still leave US markets with solid gains for July.
The S&P is up 3.1% for the month to date, the largest such rise since January, while the Dow and Nasdaq are higher by 4.3% and 1.6%, respectively. The Nasdaq Wednesday was up around 5%.
