Tech stocks tumble; new fines for social media companies; MrBeast’s growing influence
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Fear and Greed, business news you can use today. Tech stocks get sold off around the globe as investors fear that the AI boom won't prove profitable for years to come. Renewed hostilities in the Middle East trigger fears about the current ceasefire. And the Guinness Book of Records names a Canberra town crier the loudest person in the world. plus new fines for social media companies that break the under-16s ban. And Mr Beast, named the most successful social media influencer, earning three times as much as his nearest rival. It is Monday, the 29th of June, 2026. I'm Michael Thompson, and good morning, Sean Aylmer.
Hello, Michael.
You should have put your name forward for that. You have a voice that just manages to slice through anything. And if anyone was listening early in the morning just then. I apologize. I apologize. Apologies for the wake up call. Let's get cracking, Sean. The main story this morning really thrown me there. A major sell-off in tech stocks from Wall Street to Asian markets to the ASX 200 has really roiled shareholders. Investors are now pondering whether the AI boom has been overdone. The sell-off has been... really pretty severe, right? On Wall Street, where estimates suggest that AI and related sectors comprise up to 50% of the market. Some big name stocks have tumbled since its peak. Microsoft is off more than 30%.
Same deal with Meta. Oracle has fallen 40% this month. Even the king of tech, Nvidia, is off more than 10% this month. That's as Apple as well.
Investors aren't questioning whether AI is a paradigm shift. It is. What they're questioning is when it will pay off. So Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Oracle, those five companies, will spend about $1 trillion building AI infrastructure this year, same amount next year. A report from research firm Exponential View says AI sales are $1 trillion in spending. AI sales, excluding China, are running at about an annualized rate of $175 billion. Cost $1 trillion, sales, not profit, sales, $175 billion. Sales are growing fast, no doubt about it. But given the spend, it means companies won't be making profits from AI for a long, long time. In Asia, the Korean and Taiwanese markets are very AI-heavy.
particularly semiconductor companies both have risen sharply this year both are experiencing huge one-day swings at the moment the isx is impacted tech stocks were sold off again on friday the infotech index is down 40 over the last year zero wise tech global technology one life 360 have all been sold off On Friday, it was a turn of data center operated next DC, which fell 5%. But the focus really is on the big Wall Street tech stocks. And there's a shift on Wall Street out of tech into everything else.
We talked on Friday about the saying about being between a rock and a hard place. It feels like almost the case for the tech stocks, right? Because they need to spend big. Otherwise, they look like they're going to be left behind on AI. Right. Um, and if they don't, if they don't spend big, the other ones are, and they suddenly lose the reputation as being kind of with the game. Right. And it just, I, I don't, I don't know what else they could have done.
Well, I mean, it's where you spend the money, number one, and how you are going to get a return from it. And so OpenAI, Microsoft OpenAI, ChatGPT. So they've kind of got, everyone's got, well, not everyone, but the Microsoft software, you can put ChatGPT into it. There's a real strategy for that. Probably a bit different with Claude and Anthropic. It's probably a bit different.
yeah so you know there are real questions about how the some of these strategies will work and companies will make a lot of money from it in some way it's just picking which ones so what does it mean then really for investors i suppose because given so much of the market is now tech related and that stat that we mentioned uh before about kind of 50 potentially up to 50 and on wall street Couldn't the broader markets in Wall Street, Asia, and locally as well fall?
Yes.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:06–5:05
2
Why did global tech stocks tumble and which companies were hardest hit?
5:05–9:10
3
How much are big tech firms spending on AI and when will it become profitable?
9:10–12:56
4
Which Asian markets and chip companies felt the biggest AI-related swings?
12:56–17:29
Speakers
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