Technology companies had a roller coaster year in 2018. From gaining heavily with the near end bull cycle to challenges from the regulators, each major tech company had an eventful year ( bar Uber who relatively had a stable year - a welcome from the chaotic 2017). Tech companies are widely expected to show slow growth in 2019, along with a projected slowdown in IT spending (from 4.5% to 3.2%).
Facebook would continue being the focus of regulatory scrutiny, Amazon has missed its revenue targets for 2 successive quarters and investors are cautious about Apple as they have stopped disclosing their unit sales. With multiple value investors holding a buy outlook (especially Apple), a slowdown in the economy would further pull down the stock prices (Apple needs to deliver unit sales growth for short term price recovery).
It would be another eventful year for the tech companies with each of them having diverse challenges ahead.
Source Chart: Bloomberg
