Big Tech, Big Returns?

2022 was a year of reckoning for big tech companies and their shareholders. For the better part of the past decade, it had seemed as if the only way for companies such as Apple, Amazon and Alphabet was up. Even the pandemic couldn’t stop tech stocks from rallying through 2020, when many other stocks took a beating.

So for short-term investors and those under the (false) impression that things would continue going up forever, 2022 served as a painful reminder that the stock market is subject to fluctuations and risks. Each of the often-heralded GAFAM group of companies saw its share price drop significantly last year, with losses ranging from 27 percent (Apple) to 64 percent (Meta). Netflix, often mentioned in the same breath as the aforementioned group, also had its valuation cut in half, as interest rates surged, the economic outlook soured and investors were suddenly turning their backs on high-growth stocks.

As any investment advisor will tell you, the stock market is a long game, however. And anyone smart or simply old enough to have invested in tech stocks a long time ago will have had a much easier time shrugging last year’s losses off as a bump in the road. Our latest Racing Bars video shows how $1,000 invested in some of the largest tech companies on the planet at the beginning of 2010 would have turned into small fortunes over the past 13 years, with a surprise winner delivering the biggest returns.