The joy ride for internet stocks took a temporary detour on Monday.
Shares of industry stalwarts Facebook Inc. FB, -3.75%, Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL, -3.54% GOOG, -3.44% Google, Snap Inc. SNAP, -4.26%, Pinterest Inc. PINS, -3.27%, and others tumbled after China allowed its yuan currency to fall to a more-than-10-year low versus the dollar in an escalating trade war with the U.S.
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All four stocks are down at least 3% — reversing for one day their gains the past week following a series of positive results that pushed their shares up. Shares of the companies, whose rising customer memberships have propelled advertising revenue to record levels, are all up at least 10% in 2019.
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Facebook, in particular, had appeared impervious to market machinations and regulatory oversight. That stock has climbed about 40% this year despite a record $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission; a report last week the FTC is examining Facebook’s acquisitions as part of a broader antitrust investigation of the social-networking giant; and withering scrutiny from state and national lawmakers. One presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has vowed to break up Facebook and Google, with no apparent impact on either stock.
Shares of two other Big Tech companies under the regulatory microscope — Apple Inc. AAPL, -5.04% and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -2.89% — are also getting battered. Apple, which relies heavily on China to manufacture iPhones, Macintoshes and other hardware products, is suffering the sharpest decline. Its stock is down 4.5%.
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