By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – The FAANG pack fell in Wednesday’s premarket as concerns over inflation, regulation of cryptos and commodity prices gripped the market.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) were all trading down more than 1%.
China’s latest crackdown on crypto trading is adding to the nervousness around its fate as regulators grapple with what needs to be done to protect people from excessive speculation. All cryptos, crypto- and blockchain-linked shares are down Wednesday morning in the high single or double digits.
Commodity prices, too, have touched multi-year highs as economic shifts happen and consumer demand comes roaring back after more than a year of the pandemic. This includes farm products, ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
April consumer prices ran up 4.2% from a year ago, the fastest acceleration since 2008 and higher than the expected 3.6% as per a Dow Jones estimate.
While the Fed has on more than one occasion said it was focused on employment and that it was comfortable with an inflation rate higher than its long-held target of 2%, a print this high is causing anxiety.
The FAANG stocks were major beneficiaries of the sharp turnaround that happened in the markets following the March 2020 rout. As most people worked from home and gorged on services enabled by the internet, tech company revenue jumped and so did their stock prices.
With people returning to work and tech companies facing a supply crunch of chips that go into making gadgets and smart devices, growth expectations from these firms have tempered. This has reflected in their stock prices, which have weakened over the last quarter.
All-in-all, FAANG stocks in particular look set for a fall as the market opens.