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It goes without saying that the tech sector had a hard time of it in 2022 as numerous issues made it difficult to build up any sense of confidence over the past 12 months.
Customers putting off large-scale purchases. Ongoing supply chain issues. Uncertainty over China’s “Zero Covid” policies. Large scale job cuts. Almost every week brought up another problem that sent Wall Street into selling mode and left the market scratching its head in bewilderment.
And never mind everything that went on during the months-long saga of Elon Musk acquiring Twitter (TWTR) in a deal valued at $44B.
Numbers don’t lie. And the numbers behind the 10 largest tech companies by market valuation that are traded in the United States are all one really needs to look at to get a sense of what investors thought about tech stocks in 2022.
And just how much did those 10 companies lose in market cap this past year?
Try a total of $4.6T.
Read that again: $4.6T.
The numbers are almost too big to believe. But, that is the combined amount (maybe give or take a billion dollasr) that the 10 biggest tech companies lost in market cap over the last 12 months.
The losses start with with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). The iPhone maker began the year as the world’s most-valuable company, and it also ended 2022 with that title. But, after becoming the first company in history to reach a market capitalization of $3B–which it did in January–Apple (AAPL) saw sellers come in and by the end of the year, it had lost approximately $755B in market cap, to finish 2022 with a market valuation of $2.07T.
Right behind Apple (AAPL) in overall market cap among tech stocks was Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), which ended the year with a valuation of $1.79T, and down by $726B during 2002. Google parent company Alphabet (GOOG) managed to remain in the Trillion Dollar Market Cap Club, but just barely, with $1.15T in valuation, a decline of about $787B from the start of the year.
The rest of the 10 biggest tech companies, based on end-of-the year market cap, and how much they lost in 2022 are:
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN): The e-commerce/streaming/cloud storage titan finished the year with a market cap of $857B, down by almost 50%, with a loss of $856B.
Tencent Holdings (OTCPK:TCEHY): The Chinese tech and investment giant ended 2022 with a market cap of $405B, or $150B less than at the start of the year.
Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM): The world’s largest chip foundry saw its market valuation fall by $193B this year, to finish at $386.3B.
Nvidia (NVDA): The Santa Clara, California-based graphics chipmaker’s market cap lost $373B in 2022, to set itself up for 2023 with a valuation of $364B.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) which had one of the biggest market cap losses in terms of percentage, as its valuation fell by almost 60%, or about $450B, to end 2022 at $320B in market value.
Broadcom (AVGO), down by about $45B, to close out the year with a market cap of $233.7B, and Alibaba (BABA), which
Alibaba (BABA), down by almost $82B, to finish the year with a market valuation of $233.2B.
And with 2022 over, the next milestone for the tech sector will be the upcoming earnings reports set to start rolling in late in January. One of the factors likely to set the tone for Apple (AAPL) investors will be whatever the company says about the issues that have reportedly affected production of the various models of the iPhone 14.