It’s no secret 2022 has been a volatile year for tech stocks, even as Apple has stayed locked in its familiar role of stock market juggernaut, somehow always beating earnings expectations.
So you might be surprised to hear “Apple is this year’s biggest stock-market loser,” according to a report.
Apple is ‘biggest stock-market loser” in 2022 by decline in investor holdings
It’s been a “year of reckoning for tech stocks,” a new report in MarketWatch said, noting that the Information Technology sector of the benchmark S&P 500 slid 28.8%.
Meanwhile, other S&P 500 benchmarks fell steeply in part because they contain tech behemoths you might not expect, MarketWatch said. For example, the Consumer Discretionary sector, which tumbled 37.4%, includes Amazon and Tesla. And the Communications Services sector, which plummeted 40.4%, includes Meta Platforms (Facebook) and Netflix.
Apple always seems like the exception when it comes to tech losses, but is it? Read on.
Another way to look at the ‘losers’
And though each of those companies saw losses as they suffered setbacks and missteps during the year — Tesla lost 65.4% by stock price decline — there is another way to measure loss that rejiggers who the “biggest losers” are.
As MarketWatch described it:
It is one thing to have a large decline based on the share price, but that doesn’t tell the entire story. How much of a decline have investors seen in the holdings of their shares during the year? The S&P 500’s total market capitalization declined to $31.66 trillion as of Dec. 28 (the most recent figure available) from $40.36 trillion at the end of 2021, according to FactSet.
Then it went on to list the biggest losers by investor holdings, below. As you can see, Apple’s market capitalization dropped $851 billion in 2022, or 27%. Others lost higher percentages of their value — Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla — but not as much money.
Photo: FactSet via MarketWatch
“So there is your surprise for today: Apple is this year’s biggest stock-market loser,” MarketWatch said.
