Much has been said about the vertiginous fall of Apple shares in the last few weeks, which may or may not be motivated by a lack of interest, which no one has yet verified, from consumers in relation to the new iPhones. It is good to note, however, that the Apple is not alone in this downward spiral.
THE Fortune today published an article illustrating how the group of the five American technological giants considered most promising lost, in less than a month and a half, a sum greater than Saudi Arabia’s GDP in terms of market value.
The group, commonly called FAANG and composed of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, lost in a combined way $ 728 billion in market value – more than Saudi Arabia’s GDP (US $ 683 billion in 2017) and more than a third of Brazil’s GDP (US $ 2 trillion in the same year). As the losses were almost proportional to their respective market values, Apple was the one that saw its shares fall more strongly – see how much each one lost in market cap:
- Apple: $ 231.06 billion
- Amazon: $ 220.67 billion
- Google: $ 138.22 billion
- Facebook: $ 89.95 billion
- Netflix: $ 48.11 billion
All companies lost more than 20% of their market value in the last month and a half, but, of all, Apple’s fall is really the most formidable: Cult of Mac, the company lost more than the sum of market value accumulated in its first 30 years as a publicly traded company in the last six weeks (it was only in 2010 that Apple exceeded US $ 230 billion in market value) .
Apparently, the fall is also contributing to the fall of other companies – financial analyst Jim Cramer says that «the market will not stabilize until Apple stabilizes», for example. The problem is that no one knows when this will happen: Goldman Sachs bank, for example, cut the target price for Apple’s shares to $ 182, stating that there is a “material risk” that the company will not meet released performance estimates. at its last financial results conference.
Another of the companies above that is in bad shape is Facebook: in addition to the general scenario of caution that has quickly established itself in the world of technology, the giant of Mark Zuckerberg still has to worry about his own very urgent problems, such as the possibility of further sanctions. governments around the world or regulatory measures that prevent growth due to recent controversies. One of the network’s first investors, Jason Calacanis, said this could be the beginning of the company’s downfall, along the lines of AOL or Yahoo.
How long it will take the giants to return the boat to its original course – if that is possible – and what artifices they will use to do so are questions that remain unanswered. We’ll have to wait and see.
