Big Tech may be under siege, but its stocks are outperforming.
Facebook Inc. FB shares,
Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, father of Google,
GOOG,
and Microsoft Corp. MSFT,
closed at record highs on Monday, culminating in a wave of strong employment growth in the United States last month, despite a wave of criticism about its extraordinary influence on the economy and the lives of Americans. The high-tech Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
rose 1.7%, pushing other technology names to record highs, including Oracle Corp. ORCL,
HP Inc. HPQ,
and major suppliers of semiconductor equipment.
Facebook rose 3.4% to $ 308.91 per share as the social media giant continued to flourish, despite lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission and 48 state attorney generals alleging anti-competitive business practices as well like warnings from your own chief financial officer about a slowdown in digital advertising, your lifeblood. The closing price broke Facebook’s previous record close of $ 303.91 on August 26, 2020.
On Saturday, a member of a low-level hacking forum posted the phone numbers and personal details of 533 million Facebook users, just the latest in a series of controversies for the social networking company. But it doesn’t seem to matter. In fact, Facebook’s advertising prices rose 30% from 2020 levels in mid-March, according to a survey by marketing agency Aisle Rocket.
Alphabet, the subject of a Justice Department lawsuit, as well as two state lawsuits, rose 4% to close at $ 2,218.96. The company benefited, in part, from its United States Supreme Court victory over Oracle in a long-running copyright dispute over software used on Android.
For more information: Supreme Court sides with Google in $ 8 billion copyright dispute with Oracle
Facebook and Alphabet face a series of disputes and legislation to control their considerable influence, but their course of action has remained intact.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has become the technology lightning rod for data collection practices, privacy policies and consumer micro-segmentation. Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, and Twitter Inc. TWTR,
CEO Jack Dorsey received yet another scolding from members of the Chamber about the spread of misinformation on their expanding digital platforms.
Members of Congress pledged to pass legislation that restricts their ability to attract potential competitors, as Facebook did with Instagram and WhatsApp, in addition to protecting consumers. House committee member Jan Schakowsky (D., Illinois) introduced a bill to combat the online sale of stolen, counterfeit and dangerous consumer products, requiring verification of third-party vendors in online retail markets.
Microsoft, which avoided antitrust scrutiny and positioned itself as a White Knight during the Big Tech reaction, improved 2.8% to $ 249.07.
The trio of tech giants was not alone. More than a dozen technology firms – including Oracle, HP, Texas Instruments Inc. TXN,
and three major chip equipment suppliers, Lam Research Corp. LRCX,
Applied Materials Inc. AMAT,
and KLA Corp. KLAC,
– hit stock price hikes on Monday, according to market data research from Dow Jones. Oracle, Texas Instruments, Lam Research, Applied Materials, KLA and HP closed at record levels.