Technology

Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Facebook lead the way this week and they’ll need to keep investors convinced that the 4th quarter earnings season won’t be as bad as first thought.

Netflix shares are heading for a weekly gain of more than 15% as investors realised that for now it has won the streaming video battle with its myriad rivals led by Disney.

Netflix announced a big beat on subscriber numbers which topped 200 million globally for the first time, pushing the company’s shares more than 11% higher in after-hours trading. 

Legislation in the Australian parliament that might get Facebook and Google to pay some small amounts to local media companies has been overtaken in importance for the social media giants, especially Facebook, by news of a massive anti-trust lawsuit filed in an American court late Wednesday.

Thomas Rice, portfolio manager for the Perpetual Global Innovation Share Fund provides your weekly wrap of technology, innovation, and finance news.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is looking at a $US1 billion-plus paper profit from its investment in a hot tech listing in September.

Thomas Rice, portfolio manager for the Perpetual Global Innovation Share Fund provides your weekly wrap of technology, innovation, and finance news.

A solid report card from the megatechs driving the US stockmarket but the market reaction was mixed as investors considered the figures from Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, and Twitter.

Friday morning just after 7am Australian time looms as the most important time for markets in quite a while. That’s when megatechs Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, eBay, Twitter, and Facebook are due to release their September quarterly reports.

Shares of Amazon.com, Google parent Alphabet, Facebook, and Apple fell Tuesday as a report emerged that a US House subcommittee that has investigated anticompetitive business practices for more than a year would recommend splitting them up and limiting the scope of their future acquisitions.

Corporate Connect research analyst Di Brookman provides a review of Telsa’s Battery Day. Pioneered by Elon Musk the company has ambitious targets that it hopes to achieve through a combination of superior design, manufacturing, and supply chain management.

Quietly, there’s no longer a $US2 trillion company listed on Wall Street, and all that chatter about Apple and the mega techs has gone silent as the evolving sell-off in tech stocks crunches the top end of the market.

The continuing weakness in major tech stocks dragged Wall Street lower on Friday, setting up another nervy week for investors. US technology shares sold off for the third day in a row, while all three major US indexes posted a third straight week of declines.

According to the latest Bank of America’s fund manager survey, 80% of the 234 respondents reckon the Megatech sector is too crowded – in fact, they say its “the most crowded trade” ever in the market.

Apple moves into the spotlight this week – not for the benefits or otherwise of the four for one share split last week, but for the annual reveal session for some of its key products.

Gee, that didn’t last long. Apple briefly became a $US2 trillion company on Wall Street on Wednesday.

M&A moves for Microsoft and Apple had all three US indices on the rise last night. Dow up 236.

Weak economic data had Wall Street heading south but for Big Tech names, which after the bell have blown away earnings forecasts. Dow down -225.

Early futures trading shows Nasdaq will open tonight on Wall Street up more than 2% as the big four tech giants, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Facebook reported solid or spectacularly good June quarter results.

With tech valuations still stretched against the background of climbing COVID-19 infection rates, all eyes this week will be on quarterly reports and guidance from Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet.

The small crack in the level of confidence in the Megatech sector widened on Thursday when streaming video giant revealed a sharp fall in its forecast for new subscribers in the September quarter.

In the space of four or five months, Zoom has gone from just another tech stock with a video product similar to offerings from bigger companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google, to the market leader and standard to which the others are now compared.