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America's Five Biggest Tech Stocks Lost $97 Billion Friday (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNBC:
The so-called "big five" -- Apple , Alphabet Class A shares, Microsoft , Facebook and Amazon -- lost more than $97.5 billion in market value between the close on Thursday and the close on Friday, according to FactSet, dragging the Nasdaq to its worst week of the year. Shares of Apple fell nearly 4 percent on Friday, while the other four companies fell more than 3 percent. For most of the day, only 3 stocks in the S&P 500 tech sector were in the green: IBM , Teradata and Western Union . Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet all traded more than 2 times their 30-day average volume... "They're just plain overbought," said David Bahnsen founder, managing director and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, a private wealth management firm. "They are extremely stretched from a valuation standpoint."
CNN notes the drop occurred "after a Goldman Sachs analyst questioned this year's run-up in the industry's five biggest names." They also added that "The top five techs today account for 13% of the market value weighting in the S&P 500, even though they are only 1% of the companies in the index."
CNN notes the drop occurred "after a Goldman Sachs analyst questioned this year's run-up in the industry's five biggest names." They also added that "The top five techs today account for 13% of the market value weighting in the S&P 500, even though they are only 1% of the companies in the index."
Why do people own stocks? There are three primary reasons:
1. Control.
The mindset that prevails now among tech companies, and especially those founded by Silicon Valley types, is that investors are a necessary evil to be controlled. So they issue special shares to themselves to ensure that no matter how many shares somebody else owns, they still have control. It's a giant middle finger to the average investor whom the Silicon Valley types have zero respect for. Why would you want to invest in a company that doesn't care about you or your capital? It's like paying for the privilege of being abused. So in the case of these tech companies control is essentially impossible which eliminates this reason to own the stock.
2. Dividends.
Another reason to own a stock is to have a claim to a share of the profits that are distributed periodically to the owners. Some tech companies pay a dividend and some don't but even those that do offer a relatively miserly amount compared to their profits and market valuation. A look at tech company balance sheets reveals huge war chests full of cash or equivalent short term liquid investments. Doesn't this money belong to the shareholders? Why do the tech companies need such large hordes of cash in what is essentially a low capital equipment expense business? Again, this signals a lack of respect for the shareholders.
3. Capital Appreciation.
The final reason to own a stock is to have a stake in a growing business that will, by virtue of the business becoming larger and more profitable, grow in value over time. However, in the case of these tech companies, the lack of control makes any liquidation event, even in the distant future, a theoretical impossibility during the lifetime of the founder and probably for some time afterward too since tech billionaires like to put their shares into charitable trusts for long term social engineering projects. These trusts will probably continue to monopolize these assets for decades after the passing of the founders. Where is the capital appreciation if nobody can ever get control and liquidate the stakes?
Given all of these factors, how is tech an attractive investment? It looks more like a vehicle for speculation to me, at least for the average investor.
AAPL: 5% off split adjusted all-time high, set less than 1 month ago
AMZN: 3.8% off split adjusted all-time high, set less than a week ago
FB: 4% off split adjusted all-time high, set same day
GOOGL: 3.8% off split adjusted all-time high, set less than a week ago
MSFT: 3.5% off split adjusted all-time high, set less than a week ago
No drop more than 5% and four of five set new all-time highs this week. What part of this does not look like profit-taking?