Tech giants Amazon and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) have experienced an all-time low in the markets since the Financial Crisis of 2008.
The month of April saw a precipitous drop in shares of 23.8% and 18% for Amazon and Alphabet respectively, a repeat of November 2008 history when both companies simultaneously saw declines of 25.4% (Amazon) and 18.5% (Google).
These internet powerhouses attribute their lower than anticipated quarterly results to a series of unfortunate events- speculation of rising inflation and increasing interest rates which have been driving investors out of the tech industry. Added to this, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the resulting domino effect of fuel price increase and continuous labour shortages have all had a compounded negative impact on companies’ profits.
A glimpse into the past of the 2008 global financial crisis conjures up memories for Amazon and Google of a similar experience when the real estate industry took a major hit and many of the leading financial industries were going under. September 2008 saw the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a host of large Wall Street bailouts that ensued. Nasdaq stocks declined by 18% in October and 11% in November- a result of falling Tech stocks across the board.
However, all is not lost for the Tech industry as a whole in this season of earnings. Both Facebook and Apple beat expectations although Facebook warned investors of a potential drop in earnings in the second quarter from a year earlier; and Apple forecasted a possible decline in sales in the current quarter due to supply constraints.
On Thursday, Amazon failed to give clear direction for the current quarter, and their rate of growth has plateaued to its slowest since the 2001 dot-com fiasco. Earlier that week, Google’s revenue grew a mere 14%, having reported a significant miss in its YouTube segment.
Interestingly, while both Amazon and Alphabet are sharing the experience of financial decline this year, this was not the case in 2021. Alphabet had taken the title of being the best performing Big Tech stock of the year, at a burgeoning 68%, while Amazon was at the bottom of the rung, flailing at 2.4%.
