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☆ Tech stocks just finished a five-week rally — the longest stretch since market peak in Nov. 2021
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

In this article .IXIC Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNTTech stocks on display at the Nasdaq. Peter Kramer | CNBCCost control is kingMeta was the top performer among the group this week, with the stock soaring 23%, its third-best week ever. "That was really the game-changer," said Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist at Hightower Advisors, in an interview on Friday with CNBC's "Squawk Box." From the year of its IPO in 2012 through 2021, the company grew between 22% and 58% a year. But in 2022 revenue fell 1%, and analysts expect growth of only 5% in 2023, according to Refinitiv.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., demonstrates the Meta Quest Pro during the virtual Meta Connect event in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. Analysts were expecting Reality Labs to record an quarterly operating loss of $4.36 billion on revenue of $715.1 million, according to StreetAccount. In July, Meta announced it was raising the price of its Quest 2 VR headset by $100. Meta then debuted its more expensive Quest Pro VR headset in October, pitching it to companies as an enterprise-workplace device for $1,500. This week, Meta is running a sale on its high-end VR headset, shaving off $400 for a limited time.

☆ Watch CNBC's full tech discussion with Evercore's Mark Mahaney
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailWatch CNBC's full tech discussion with Evercore's Mark MahaneyEvercore ISI's Mark Mahaney and CNBC's Ari Levy join 'The Exchange' to discuss tech earnings after mega-cap tech struggled in the last year. Will things be better in 2023?

☆ We want to look for companies that are somewhat recession resistant, says Evercore's Mahaney
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailWe want to look for companies that are somewhat recession resistant, says Evercore's MahaneyEvercore ISI's Mark Mahaney and CNBC's Ari Levy join 'The Exchange' to discuss tech earnings after mega-cap tech struggled in the last year. Will things be better in 2023?

☆ Nasdaq closes out its first four-quarter slump since dot-com crash
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

The only other negative four-quarter stretch in the Nasdaq's five-decade history was in 1983-84, when the video game market crashed. watch nowOther than 2008, the only other year worse for the Nasdaq was 2000, when the dot-com bubble burst and the index sank 39%. Numerous companies went bankrupt, most notably crypto exchange FTX, which collapsed after reaching a $32 billion valuation earlier in the year. In total, Nasdaq companies have shed close to $9 trillion in value this year, according to FactSet. At its peak in 2000, Nasdaq companies were worth about $6.6 trillion in total, and proceeded to lose about $5 trillion of that by the time the market bottomed in October 2002.

☆ The tech IPO market collapsed in 2022, and next year doesn't look much better
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

The Stockholm-based company raised financing at a $6.7 billion valuation this year, an 85% discount to its prior valuation of $46 billion. Butler doesn't expect the IPO market to get appreciably better in 2023. Butler also thinks that Silicon Valley has to adapt to a shift away from the growth-first mindset before the IPO market picks up again. Butler said he expects this "cultural reset" to take a couple more quarters and said, "that makes me remain pessimistic on the IPO market." Databricks raised $1.6 billion at a $38 billion valuation in August of 2021, near the market's peak.

☆ Insomnia is a $5 billion business — and this former sleep doctor thinks it's time for a new approach
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +16 min

Daniel Erichsen, founder of the Sleep Coach School Daniel ErichsenDaniel Erichsen spent about a decade as a sleep doctor, primarily seeing patients who were struggling with sleep apnea and insomnia. According to market research firm Imarc, the global insomnia market will hit $5.1 billion this year and climb to $6.1 billion by 2028. Other apps, including some backed by venture capital firms, promote cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I. That therapy is meant to change the way people think about sleep and incorporates behavior changes like sleep restriction and stimulus control. Kendall's message, which mirrors much of Erichsen's teachings, is that sleep is simple, but insomnia makes it seem complex.

☆ Binance's native BNB token plunges to lowest since July as concerns mount about withdrawals, FTX ties
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Binance's Co-founder & CEO Changpeng Zhao has given several interviews discussing the outlook for cryptocurrency following a turbulent couple of weeks in the market. The latest issue looming over Binance is FTX's bankruptcy proceedings. In exiting its equity position in the company last year, Binance received payment equal to roughly $2.1 billion. Binance's native token, BNB, has fallen 15% in the past week, including a drop of over 6% in the past 24 hours. BNB, first minted in 2017, is the world's fifth most valuable cryptocurrency, with a market cap of about $39 billion, according to CoinMarketCap .

☆ Coinbase debtholders sweat as bonds trade near 50 cents on the dollar following FTX collapse
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Monitors display Coinbase signage during the company's initial public offering (IPO) at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, April 14, 2021. For over a month, Coinbase notes set to mature in 2031 have been trading around 50 cents on the dollar, down from about 92 cents at the beginning of the year. The first tranche of bonds — $1.4 billion in convertible notes — don't mature until June 2026. But the company is projected by analysts to run up a $2.6 billion loss this year and another deficit of $1.4 billion in 2023, according to Refinitiv estimates. "The company is in a strong liquidity position, but at the same time they have to deal with a changing operating environment."

On Monday, the company announced the departure of Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, who joined Salesforce last year as part of its biggest acquisition ever. Taylor, who joined Salesforce in 2016 through the acquisition of his startup Quip, said he'd "decided to return to my entrepreneurial roots." While Taylor and Butterfield are the highest-profile exits, they're far from alone among Salesforce's executive ranks. Noah Weiss, senior vice president of product at Slack, will succeed Yehoshua, Butterfield said in a Slack message. Butterfield is being succeeded by Lidiane Jones, an executive vice president at Salesforce who joined in 2019.

Salesforce said Wednesday that Bret Taylor will step down as co-CEO on Jan. 31, leaving Marc Benioff alone again at the top of the cloud software company he co-founded in 1999. Benioff closely embraced Taylor, who joined the company in 2016, when he sold his productivity software startup Quip to Salesforce. "I am grateful for six fantastic years at Salesforce," Taylor said in a statement on Wednesday. Before Quip, Taylor sold FriendFeed to Facebook and helped to create Google Maps. But the company's stock was down as much as 6% in after-hours trading.

Barry Silbert, the founder of crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, has joined a growing list of industry leaders in trying to settle investors' nerves after the sudden collapse of FTX. Since FTX's rapid winddown two weeks ago, investors have worried about a crypto contagion affecting every corner of the industry. "We have weathered previous crypto winters," Silbert wrote, adding that "while this one may feel more severe, collectively we will come out of it stronger." They've each expressed shock at FTX's apparent deceit of investors and customers and emphasized that client assets are secure. It also absorbed the $1.1 billion debt that the bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital owed Genesis.

It's a stark reversal for five-year-old Multicoin, which announced a $430 million fund in July, its third and largest to date. "We put entirely too much trust in our relationship with FTX," Multicoin managing partners Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain wrote in the 3,400-plus word letter, which CNBC obtained. Multicoin said it doesn't expect the crypto market to turn anytime soon. "Many trading firms will be wiped out and shut down, which will put pressure on liquidity and volume throughout the crypto ecosystem. The crypto market has experienced multiple pullbacks in the last few years and has bounced back.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried admits FTX got 'overconfident and careless' ahead of collapse
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO and Founder of FTX, walks near the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C., September 15, 2022. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said on Wednesday that the cryptocurrency exchange got "overconfident" and "careless" as it grew into a $32 billion juggernaut. His comments come days after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of a catastrophic week. In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Bankman-Fried said "problems were brewing" that were "larger than [he] realized." The FTX founder said the company's assets were "fine" two days before he was desperate for a rescue because of a liquidity crunch.

related investing news Cathie Wood's ARK Invest keeps buying more crypto assets despite FTX bankruptcy Crypto.com is smaller than FTX but still ranks among the top 15 global exchanges, according to CoinGecko. Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, speaking at a 2018 Bloomberg event in Hong Kong, China. Marszalek has spent the early part of the week trying to reassure users and regulators that the business is fine. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said his company's assets were "fine" two days before he was desperate for a rescue because of a liquidity crunch. Marszalek said on Monday that this was just a reflection of the assets Crypto.com customers were buying.

☆ From $32 billion to criminal investigations: How Sam Bankman-Fried's empire vanished overnight
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Mackenzie Sigalos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +17 min

Alameda's success spurred the launch of crypto exchange FTX in the spring of 2019. A Twitter fight with the CEO of rival exchange Binance pulled the mask off the scheme. Alameda, FTX and a host of subsidiaries Bankman-Fried founded have filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware. On Nov. 2, CoinDesk reported a leaked balance sheet showing that a significant amount of Alameda's assets were held in FTX's illiquid FTT token. On Nov. 6, according to Bankman-Fried, the exchange had roughly $5 billion of withdrawals, "the largest by a huge margin."

Jordan Vonderhaar | Bloomberg | Getty Imageswatch nowSaylor was speaking on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" as FTX's demise roiled the crypto market. Bitcoin tumbled 19% in December, as investors rotated into assets deemed safer in a tumultuous economy. David Marcus, former head of crypto at Facebook parent Meta , used a phrase that would soon enter the lexicon. "It's during crypto winters that the best entrepreneurs build the better companies," Marcus wrote in a Jan. 24 tweet. Ryan Gilbert, founder of fintech venture firm Launchpad Capital, said the crypto world is facing a crisis of confidence after the FTX implosion.

☆ Facebook used to be a Big Tech giant — now Meta isn't even in the top 20 most valuable U.S. companies
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Far from Facebook's Big Tech days, Meta is no longer among the 20 most valuable U.S. companies after the stock sank 23% on Thursday. The company has shed 70% of its value this year and 74% since the stock peaked in September 2021, totaling over $730 billion in market cap lost. It's now worth half as much as Berkshire Hathaway and has a smaller market cap than companies including UnitedHealth , Chevron , Eli Lilly , Procter & Gamble , Bank of America and AbbVie . Within tech, the other two companies Meta has fallen behind are Tesla and Nvidia . Next on the list would be Oracle , which is currently valued at just over $200 billion, or $70 billion below Meta.

☆ Crypto winter is hurting Google's ad empire
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

A cryptocurrency price crash and the onset of a new so-called "crypto winter" has left many companies in the industry facing a liquidity crisis. Google's overall ad growth of 6% in the quarter was the weakest for any period since 2013, other than one quarter at the beginning of the pandemic. CEO Sundar Pichai said the "challenging macro climate" is having an impact on Google's ad business. Schindler referenced the crypto pullback twice, but he didn't provide any additional color or specifics. Additionally, Coinbase will move data-related applications to Google's cloud infrastructure from Amazon Web Services, which the company has relied on for years.

☆ Cloud stocks just wrapped up their worst week since January, led by plunge in Five9 and SentinelOne
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Cloud stocks plummeted 11% this week, the steepest drop since January, as executive departures at Five9 and Zscaler and investors' continued rotation out of risk combined to send the group to its lowest level since March 2020. The WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund, a basket of 75 cloud software stocks, has lost 53% of its value for the year, more than double the drop in the S&P 500. Five9 shares suffered the biggest decline in the index, falling 29% for the week, after CEO Rowan Trollope said he was leaving to run a pre-IPO company. Security software vendor Zscaler announced the resignation of its president, Amit Sinha, who is also taking a CEO position at a pre-IPO company. The WisdomTree index fell all five days this week, and had its worst day on Friday, dropping 3.6%.

☆ Tech stocks just had their worst two-week stretch since the start of the pandemic
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

What started off as a third-quarter rebound has turned into a flop for tech investors. The central bank took its federal funds rate up to a range of 3%-3.25%, the highest it's been since early 2008, following the third consecutive 0.75 percentage point move. Meanwhile, as rising rates have pushed the 10-year treasury yield to its highest in 11 years, the dollar has been strengthening. That makes U.S. products more expensive in other countries, hurting tech companies that are heavy on exports. "This is a one-two punch on tech," Jack Ablin, Cresset Capital's chief investment officer, told CNBC's "TehcCheck" on Friday.

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