Great technologies may be under siege, but their actions outperform.
Facebook Inc.FB shares,
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, GOOGL,
GOOG,
and Microsoft Corp. MSFT,
it closed at record highs on Monday, culminating a wave of strong job growth in the United States last month despite a wave of criticism about its enormous influence on the economy and on the lives of Americans. The high-tech Nasdaq Composite COMP index
increased 1.7%, pushing other tech names to record highs, including Oracle Corp. ORCL,
HP Inc. HPQ,
and large suppliers of semiconductor equipment.
Facebook was up 3.4% to $ 308.91 a share as the social media giant continued to flourish despite lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission and 48 state attorneys general alleging anti-competitive business practices, as well as your own CFO’s warnings about a slowdown in digital advertising. , his life blood. The closing price broke Facebook’s previous record close of $ 303.91 on August 26, 2020.
On Saturday, a member of a low-level hacking forum posted the phone numbers and personal details of 533 million Facebook users, just the latest in a series of controversies for the social media company. But it seems to matter little. In fact, Facebook ad prices rose 30% from their 2020 levels in mid-March, according to research by marketing agency Aisle Rocket.
Alphabet, the subject of a Justice Department lawsuit and two AG state lawsuits, rose 4% to close at $ 2,218.96. The company benefited, in part, from its US Supreme Court victory over Oracle in a long-running copyright dispute over software used on Android.
For More Information: Supreme Court Sides With Google In $ 8 Billion Copyright Dispute With Oracle
Facebook and Alphabet face a series of lawsuits and laws to curb their considerable influence, but their stock market trajectories have remained intact.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become the technology lightning rod for consumer data collection practices, privacy policies and microtargeting. Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter Inc. TWTR,
CEO Jack Dorsey received another criticism from House members about the spread of misinformation on his extensive digital platforms.
Members of Congress have pledged to pass legislation that restricts their ability to target potential competitors, as Facebook did with Instagram and WhatsApp, in addition to protecting consumers. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.), Member of the House committee, introduced a bill to combat the online sale of stolen, counterfeit and dangerous consumer products by requiring verification of outside sellers in the markets online retailers.
Microsoft, which has evaded antitrust scrutiny and positioned itself as a White Knight during the Big Tech backlash, improved 2.8% to $ 249.07.
The trio of tech giants weren’t alone. More than a dozen technology fans, including Oracle, HP, Texas Instruments Inc. TXN,
and three major chip equipment vendors, Lam Research Corp. LRCX,
Applied Materials Inc. AMAT,
and KLA Corp. KLAC,
– hit intraday highs in stock price Monday, according to Dow Jones market data research. Oracle, Texas Instruments, Lam Research, Applied Materials, KLA and HP closed at record levels.