Stocktake: A terrible week for the tech giants

Meta wasn’t the only technology giant to miss earnings estimates last week, with Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet also disappointing investors.

Tech stocks have been hit hard this year, as reflected in the sector’s S&P 500 weighting.

In 2018, sectoral changes meant Meta, Alphabet and Netflix were moved to a new communication services sector from technology. If those changes were not made, tech would have accounted for a record 45 per cent of the S&P 500 in December 2021, notes 22V Research’s John Roque, compared to 37.9 per cent today.

Even that figure remains well above the previous record weighting in 2000. The rotation away from tech stocks isn’t over, says Roque, with the sector’s index weighting having “nowhere to go but down”.