Alphabet, Amazon, Apple And Microsoft: All Remain In Downtrends

You wouldn’t necessarily know it if all you read was from the excited, enthusiastic bloggers who claim the late-in-the-year 2022 lows were the bottom of the cycle, but big names remain stuck in intermediate-term downtrends. Tech stocks representing the bulk of the Nasdaq-100 index still have a distance to travel before passing their old peaks.

The giants that can’t quite get there include such elites as Alphabet, AmazonAMZN
, AppleAAPL
and MicrosoftMSFT
. Even the overbearing hype for something called “artificial intelligence” couldn’t attract enough buyers lately for the stock formerly known as Google. The odd, too-early roll out of ChatGPT for Microsoft’s Bing is not bringing them in either.

Here is the Microsoft weekly price chart:

The downtrend line that connects the late 2021 peaks is just barely penetrated in February, 2023 but the stock seems unable to close above it. Microsoft dropped below its 50-week moving average (the blue line) in March/April, 2022 and has now crossed back above — again on a “just barely” basis.

You can see how the stock tested the 200-week moving average (the red line) in October, 2022 and again in late December, 2022. Is another test of that level required before it bounces or will it scarily retest those March/April, 2020 pandemic scare lows?

The Alphabet weekly chart looks like this:

From above $150 in early 2022 to an October, 2022 low of $85, that was almost but not quite a 50% drop. The rally from that apparent bottom took the price back up to the down trend line that connects the January, 2022 peak with March/April 2022 high.

Coincidentally, the 2023 selling came in at the level of the down trending 50-week moving average, not a good look from a price chart analyst’s viewpoint. Alphabet late last year crossed below the up trending 200-week moving average — and remains below it today.

Here’s the Amazon weekly chart:

The stock that made Jeff Bezos a billionaire is now having a tough time finding enough buyers to mount a lasting rally. As it neared the closing days of 2022, Amazon found its price all the way back down to those March, 2020 lows. From the peak of $185 to the low of $80 is a more than 50% shellacking.

That the 50-week moving average has crossed below the 200-week moving average is a concerning matter for investors who hold the stock. The relative strength indicator (RSI, below the price chart) is showing a positive divergence, the one possibly hopeful sign on this sad chart.

The Apple weekly price chart looks like this:

This is the best looking of all the price charts mentioned here but the stock is trading BELOW the down trend line that connects the early 2022 peak with the March, 2022 high and the April, 2022 high. The iPhone manufacturer has managed to make it back above its down trending 50-week moving average.

Berkshire Hathaway’sBRK.B
biggest equity position continues to trade well above its up trending 200-week moving average.

Not investment advice. For educational purposes only.