In recent years, big tech names like Apple (AAPL) – Get Apple Inc. Report, Meta Platforms (FB) – Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Report and Amazon (AMZN) – Get Amazon.com, Inc. Report seemed almost immune from Wall Street downswings.
In fact, for most of 2021 their strong performance masked otherwise dismal showings in many other companies’s shares, carrying the major stock indexes higher thanks to their outsized impact.
But since the start of 2022, big tech has come down to Earth in a painful way, as fears of rising interest rates, a global economic slowdown and the uncertainty of Europe’s largest land war in 75 years have sent shares tumbling.
But one Wall Street veteran is out Monday with a series of tweets offering perspective and support for tech stocks. And they may be even more upbeat than technology fan Cathie Wood. Wood has been taking a pounding from critics of her Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) – Get ARK Innovation ETF Report for her ongoing buys of tech stocks amid the current selloff.
Perspective
Wedbush Managing Director Dan Ives has seen it all before and he’s not worried.
“We have seen every cycle covering tech as an analyst since the http://dot.com days. We want to own high quality tech stocks thru this market storm/Fed rate cycle,” Ives tweeted. “Multiples compress, it’s been painful-but it does not sway our long term bullish view of tech!”
Ives recalled the aftermath of the dot-com boom and bust.
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“In 2002-2003 we would talk to many nervous VCs and investors saying the appetite for tech was over and it was a garage sale,” he wrote. “Yet this started some of the most innovative tech companies on the planet being started and funded during this time period and ultimately lead to a historic market run through 2007.”
And again in the wake of the financial crisis.
“I remember speaking at a Sand Hill Road event in February 2009 at the depths of the market lows where investors, startups, and VCs were basically almost in tears as it seemed like the market was forever changed;”
He added that “tech stocks were the last thing on earth anyone wanted to talk about with March 2009 lows ahead of us, massive layoffs abound, and 666 on the S&P a month later in early March. The rest is history as the market went on a historic run-up until March 2020.”
And for a third time with Covid panic selling in 2020, tech shares were hammered by “another major white-knuckle period in the market with a historic snap back and all-time highs heading into late 2021.”
Been There, Done That
As Ives put it “been there and done that; seeing so many times that tech names rolled over hard and the skeptics said the clock struck midnight for tech and it was time for the bulls to say goodnight. We could NOT disagree more as we remain steadfastly bullish on tech here.”
And he added “Our unwavering view is that the shift to the cloud is only ~40% complete with a massive digital growth wave ahead that will benefit Microsoft (MSFT) – Get Microsoft Corporation Report, Amazon (AWS) (AMZN) – Get Amazon.com, Inc. Report, Google (GCP) (GOOGL) – Get Alphabet Inc. Class A Report, Salesforce (CRM) – Get salesforce.com, inc. Report, and Oracle (ORCL) – Get Oracle Corporation Report.
