by Concerns about the growth of big tech do not apply to George Soros.
The Federal Reserve’s decision to aggressively raise interest rates to combat inflation, which has been high for 40 years, threatens to push the economy into recession, many analysts say.
This inflation, which mainly affects consumers, is a huge problem for the technology sector, as tech products and services are the first to suffer from budget cuts. Consumers tend to limit their discretionary purchases, while companies postpone investments in new hardware, for example.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (AMZN) – Get a free reportsummarized the dire situation on Nov. 16 with these tips for small businesses and consumers.
“My advice to people, small business owners, is take some risks off the table. If you’re going to make a purchase, maybe you can delay that purchase a bit,” the billionaire said. “If you’re an individual and you’re thinking about buying a new big screen TV, maybe slow down, keep that money and see what happens. Same goes for a fridge, a new car whatever, let’s take some risks off the table.”
“If you’re a small business, maybe put off some capital purchases. Do you need that new piece of equipment? Maybe it can wait, have some cash on hand; a little bit of risk mitigation can make all the difference for that small business.” company.”
Soros acquires a large block of shares in Alphabet
Similar concerns were raised by tech groups themselves when they released their third-quarter results last month.
“In the third quarter, we saw a pullback in some advertisers’ spend in certain territories and search ads,” Philipp Schindler, Alphabet’s senior vice president and chief business officer, told analysts. “In financial services, for example, we saw a decline in the subcategories of insurance, loans, mortgages and crypto.”
“There is no question that we are operating in an uncertain environment and companies, large and small, are being tested in new and different ways depending on where in the world they are located.”
To cope with these difficult times, the technology sector has relied on drastic cost cutting, the most visible of which is the job loss wave. In mid-November, Amazon began cutting 10,000 jobs, or about 3% of the company’s workforce, an unprecedented move in its history.
Meta platforms (META) – Get a free report also announced the shedding of 11,000 jobs, or 13% of the group’s 87,000 employees. It was the first job loss in Facebook’s history since its founding in 2004.
Downsizing has spread across the tech and crypto sectors: Twitter (TWTR) – Get a free reportMicrosoft (MSFT) – Get a free reportLyft (LYFT) – Get a free reportCoinbase (MINT) – Get a free reportStripe recently cut all jobs.
Alphabet (GOOGL) – Get a free reportApple (AAPL) – Get a free report and others have stopped or slowed down the pace of recruitment.
Soros, through his firm Soros Fund Management (SFM), owned 53,175 shares of Alphabet as of July 31. Three months later, his stake in Alphabet rose to 1.01 million shares, up 1.806%, according to a filing.
The billionaire acquired shares in the quarter in which Alphabet’s share prices lost 12.2% of their value.
Soros sells some Amazon stock
If he sold Amazon stock, it was a small number, indicating that Soros still believes in the e-commerce giant, which left the $1 trillion club in October. Amazon’s market cap currently stands at $960 billion.
SFM owns 1,981,161 Amazon shares compared to 2,004,500 in the second quarter. It’s a small drop of 1.16%.
Stock market regulations require managers of funds with more than $100 million in U.S. stocks to file a document known as a 13F within 45 days of the end of the quarter to declare their holdings of stocks traded on U.S. exchanges. mention.
The value of Soros’ U.S. equity portfolio rose 4.3% quarter-over-quarter to nearly $5.9 billion. Soros Fund Management is a family office that manages public and private equity.
SFM invests globally across a broad range of strategies and asset classes, including public equities, fixed income, commodities, currencies, alternative assets and private equity.
Soros, whose net worth is estimated at $8.5 billion, up $1 billion on Nov. 22, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is known for pouring money into philanthropic endeavors. Most of his company’s assets are owned by Open Society Foundations, which “support people around the world who work for justice, justice and free speech.”
