Earnings continued to flood in last week, with a number of mega tech names making most of the headlines. However, earnings across the board have been better than expected with the energy and financials seeing the largest percentage ‘beats’ in the US. Within tech, Apple took a $ billion hit to sales due to supply chain issues, as mentions of the global supply bottlenecks rose significantly across commentary in all sectors. As a result, Apple lost its crown as the world’s most valuable company to Microsoft with both companies worth just shy of $2.5tn.

 

It wasn’t all cold hard financial data last week, as the Facebook group (which includes the likes of Whatsapp and Instagram) will now be known as ‘Meta’ and will trade under the ticker MVRS from next month. The end of the FAANG acronym? Also, keep an eye out for unrelated names such as Canadian mining firm Meta, and the tech ETF with the ticker META – no doubt both will see inexplicable inflows in the coming weeks.

 

For those like me who had to look up what the ‘metaverse’ is, BofAML report that the phrase was first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel ‘Snow Crash’, where humans interact with avatars in a realm where the lines between the real and virtual worlds is increasingly blurred. For those of you currently unconsciously rolling your eyes, I’ll leave you with a final thought. Singer Ariana Grande attracted 78 million people to a virtual concert within the video game Fortnite earlier this year. Whichever way you slice that up, it comes with some undeniable commercial opportunities.

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