It’s been a good day for short sellers betting against technology companies.
Tech stocks resumed their sell-off Thursday, despite a brief respite a day earlier. By mid-day on Thursday, the market capitalization of the so-called FAANG stocks had fallen by about $38.8 billion in total. Facebook shares dipped as much as 2.6% in trading. Apple shares fell as much as 2%, Amazon shed 2.7%, Netflix lost as much as 3.3%, while Google’s parent company Alphabet, fell as much as 2.9%. By the market’s close though, most had pared some of those losses.
The sell-off first started last week, when a Goldman Sachs note sparked worries that investors had piled into tech stocks too much, and too fast. After all, the total market capitalization of all information technology stocks on the S&P 500, for instance, has risen $1.1 trillion over the past year — up 18%.
The sell-off for Thursday was partially fanned by bearish notes from Canaccord Genuity and Barclays. While the former downgraded Alphabet to “hold,” the latter said Apple was nearing peak valuation levels.
In Thursday trading, Amazon’s market capitalization fell $8.9 billion to $457.9 billion; Netflix shed $1.1 billion to $64.5 billion; Apple dropped $10.2 billion to $746.7 billion; Facebook shed $6.1 billion to $429.3 billion, while Alphabet fell to $650.7 billion.
Still, some investors thought the tech stocks had been oversold, and bought into the dip. By the market’s close Thursday, Amazon’s market cap was down a lesser $4.6 billion in comparison to a day earlier, ending trading with a market cap of $460.9 billion; Netflix was down just $89 million at $65.4 billion; Apple had fallen $4.5 billion at $752.3 billion in market cap; Facebook was down just $1.3 billion with a market cap of $434.2 billion. Alphabet, meanwhile, had pared its market cap losses to $4.6 billion, valued at $657.6 billion by the market’s close.