Big 5 Slip Under The $4 Trillion Mark As SaaS And Social Tech Stocks Also Sell Off

Tech stocks of all sorts are down, including the biggest tech companies and a few critical sectors that impact startups.

Naturally, today could just be another blip that is quickly ironed out by traders. But, as Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal pointed out, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is “headed for its worst [three]-day drop since March.”

That’s enough for us to pause and observe the carnage.

The Big 5 And FANG

Today’s declines have brought the five biggest domestic tech companies’ combined market caps under the $4 trillion mark, according to Google Finance API data.

Just over a year ago, the same five companies (Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook) were worth just $3 trillion. Their epic run of value creation buoyed the markets, giving public market investors strong returns.

Today all of the five are down: Apple is off half a percent, Alphabet is off about 1.75 percent, Microsoft is down 2.26 percent, Amazon is off 2.3 percent, and Facebook is down another 4.21 percent. That last 421 basis point decline comes after Facebook shed a fifth of its value last week.

But the Big Five are not the only tech stocks falling. The FANG collection, which includes Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet (Google), is also taking a plunge. Per CBNC, the collection of companies’ index is off 10 percent from highs, putting it into “correction territory.”

SaaS Crash

It isn’t just the big players taking a beating, however. SaaS companies, famous for stable revenue growth, easy-to-predict topline figures, and chronic GAAP losses are struggling today as well.

Well-known players in the SaaS world like Box and Dropbox are off 4.63 percent and 6.99 percent apiece. SaaS megalodon Salesforce is off a full 4.5 percent, and WorkDay is off 4.89 percent. Shopify is down 6.54 percent. Hubspot is only down 3.32 percent, but Atlassian is off a larger 4.63 percent.

It’s a pretty stiff decline for SaaS companies. Bear in mind that this stuff works backward into SaaS startup valuations. So the public market performance of SaaS shops matters to private investors and startup founders alike.

The Other Social Companies

Facebook and Twitter were both repriced by the market last week. Snap, which reports its earnings next week, is being repriced in advance. The firm has endured a number of declines in the aftermath of Facebook and Twitter’s earnings.

Today Snap is off 4.4 percent. Twitter itself is off another 6.86 percent.

Now, back to work with you!