2022 was mighty painful for Big Tech, as clearly demonstrated by Wall Street’s biggest stock losers for the year.
While the news of Elon Musk’s $200 billion loss (the most anyone has ever lost in history dominated headlines, it simply underscored a much broader trend/market correction.
Although it’d be remiss to mention Musk without noting the, shall we say, contributing factors surrounding the end result; contrary to the belief that “all publicity is good publicity,” controversy and negative press coverage is extremely bad for business.
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“You might blame the Twitter-related antics and sales of Tesla shares by CEO Elon Musk for the 65% decline in the electric-vehicle maker’s stock during 2022. But Tesla had a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 120.3 at the end of 2021, while the S&P 500 SPX traded for 21.4 times its weighted forward earnings estimate, according to FactSet,” explained Philip van Doorn of Market Watch.
“Those P/E ratios have now declined to 22.1 and 16.8, respectively. So Tesla no longer appears to be a very expensive stock, especially for a company that increased its vehicle deliveries by 42% in the third quarter from a year earlier.”
Then there’s the case of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, which took hit after hit after hit in 2022. The latest major decline in the Facebook and Instagram parent company’s share price occurred around October after an earnings report revealed it’d missed the mark vis-a-vis dollars and cents. Again.
Not only had profits halved during Q3 – representing the second consecutive quarter informed by disappointing numbers – with revenue down 4.5% overall, but it seems as though Zucc has zero intentions of abandoning his metaverse venture. Despite mass criticism from both outsiders and his own camp.
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“The cost of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse ambition is clearer than ever,” GlobalData analyst Rachel Foster Jones told The Guardian.
“Meta has put its entire business on the line for the metaverse, which still doesn’t exist, and the gamble is not paying off. Meta has been too busy attempting to push the metaverse that it has run its core ad business into the ground, and a string of poor results has taken its toll on investor confidence.”
To date, Zucc’s pet project has cost the company over $100 billion on research and development, as well as product development ($15 billion in the past year alone).
Rachel Foster Jones added: “Zuckerberg has let the narrative of the metaverse take over the company, and investors are concerned about plunging more money into this endeavour.”
Check out the companies that bled the most below.
Wall Street’s Biggest Stock Losers Of 2022
By Percentage
| Company | Ticker Code | 2022 Price Change |
| Generac Holdings Inc. | GNRC | -71.4% |
| Match Group Inc. | MTCH | -68.6% |
| Align Technology Inc. | ALGN | -67.9% |
| SVB Financial Group | SIVB | -66.1% |
| Tesla Inc. | TSLA | -65.0% |
| Catalent Inc. | CTLT | -64.8% |
| Signature Bank | SBNY | -64.4% |
| Meta Platforms Inc. Class A | META | -64.2% |
| V.F. Corp. | VFC | -62.3% |
| PayPal Holdings Inc. | PYPL | -62.2% |
By Market Capitalisation
| Company | Ticker Code | 2022 Market Capitalisation Change |
| Apple Inc. | AAPL | -$846 billion (-26.8%) |
| Amazon.com Inc. | AMZN | -$834 billion (-49.6%) |
| Microsoft Corp. | MSFT | -$737 billion (-28.7%) |
| Tesla Inc. | TSLA | -$672 billion (-65.0%) |
| Meta Platforms Inc. Class A | META | -$464 billion (-64.2%) |
| Nvidia Corp. | NVDA | -$376 billion (-50.3%) |
| PayPal Holdings Inc. | PYPL | -$140 billion (-62.2%) |
| Netflix Inc. | NFLX | -$136 billion (-51.1%) |
| Walt Disney Co. | DIS | -$123 billion (-43.9%) |
| Salesforce Inc. | CRM | -$118 billion (-47.8%) |
Data source: Market Watch
**All $$$ referenced in this article = USD
