Big tech's week featured alphabet and Amazon rallies, Meta crash

[CHICAGO] This week was one for the record books for big tech, in ways both good and historically bad.

Results from a trio of Wall Street's most widely followed names spurred huge weekly moves, with hundreds of billions of dollars getting created or evaporated.

For Alphabet and Amazon.com, strong reports underlined their growth prospects, spurring rallies that led to their biggest 1-week percentage gains in months. For Meta Platforms, the Facebook parent that had the single-worst day in Wall Street history by one metric, it was a different story.

Alphabet rose 7.5 per cent for the week, its best such performance since October. Earlier this week, it reported results that beat expectations, help by a robust performance in its advertising business.

The week's advance added US$122.5 billion to its market valuation, bringing it close to the US$2 trillion threshold. It rose 0.1 per cent on Friday (Feb 4).

Amazon rose 9.5 per cent for the week, its biggest 1-week gain since July 2020. The bulk of the week's advance came on Friday, when shares surged nearly 14 per cent on the back of a report that also sailed past expectations.

Friday's move was the biggest percentage gain for the stock since April 2015, and the nearly US$191 billion it added in market value was a record 1-day value gain for the US market.

On the other end of the scale, Meta fell 21 per cent over the week, its biggest 1-week drop on record. The collapse came after it gave a weak revenue forecast amid stagnating user growth and increasing competition from TikTok.

Shares suffered their biggest drop ever on Thursday, resulting in the biggest 1-day wipeout of market value for any US company in history. The stock fell 0.3 per cent on Friday.

Overall, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index rose 1.7 per cent for the week, its second straight weekly gain. Last week it was supported by strong reports from other mega-cap stocks, including Apple and Microsoft. BLOOMBERG