Goldman Sachs recently estimated that if the Federal Reserve decides to tighten monetary policy forcefully to damp inflation then the Nasdaq could tumble another 17 per cent. It is too soon to declare the end of the current tech rout. However, anyone taking shelter in Big Tech should not kid themselves.
Fund managers surveyed by Bank of America are now “underweight” tech stocks for the first time since December 2008. And sentiment is now so sour that it is tempting to think that a turnround is due. Unlike the eyeball metrics of the dotcom bubble, the cash churned out by the technology industry over the past decade is no mirage. For those that scoffed at the last two years of excesses in markets, it has felt like sweet vindication.Īside from Meta’s market meltdown after Facebook’s results disappointed investors, the senior ranks of the tech hierarchy have performed better than the broader Nasdaq. For companies that are sustained more by dreams than cash flows, 2022 has been a nightmare. The more distant a company’s profits, the greater the adverse impact of rising rates on valuations. Interest rates have an almost mechanistic impact on how many investors value so-called growth stocks. That initially led many analysts and investors to dismiss the declines as a “ spec tech wreck” triggered by the prospect of tighter monetary policy and rising bond yields. In many cases, these tumbles started last year and have been particularly brutal in speculative, often unprofitable technology stocks. The $5.15tn that has evaporated from the Nasdaq in recent weeks is like the entire UK stock market going “poof”. Almost 43 per cent have lost more than half their value, and nearly a fifth have tumbled over 75 per cent - the worst such ratio since the financial crisis.
Tech stock bubble plus#
Yes, the index is vastly bigger these days, But the scale of wealth destruction - and how painful it has been for many investors - is real and arguably under-appreciated, as the relative resilience of Big Tech is obscuring the extent of the damage.Īlmost two-thirds of the Nasdaq’s 3,000 plus members have fallen by at least 25 per cent from their 52-week highs, according to numbers from Société Générale’s Andrew Lapthorne. In dollar terms, the tech-heavy market has now lost well over $5tn in value since its November peak - more than the Nasdaq’s dollar losses through the entire dotcom bubble unwinding in 2000-02. Despite a tepid bounce over the past week, the Nasdaq Composite index has already fallen nearly 20 per cent in 2022.
The pain has been primarily focused in US technology stocks. However, as is often the case, headline indices miss a more fascinating story underneath. The MSCI All-Country World index is now down 12 per cent in 2022.
The combination of increasingly hawkish central banks and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been toxic for equity markets this year. At what point does the slump in US technology stocks stop being dismissed as a mere “ tech wreck” primarily centred on the most speculative companies and become considered a fully-fledged dotcom crash 2.0?
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