Monday wasn't the best day for American big tech, as trade tensions between China and the U.S. blew up. All of the companies under the "Big Tech" circle lost over 3 percent in stock value, with Apple leading the way.
According to CNBC, Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, and Apple lost a combined $162 billion in market share value on Monday, following the continued tensions between China and the U.S.
While all of the Big Tech companies saw dropped over three percent in value, Apple saw the biggest percentage drop at 5.2 percent. Some analysts predicted that even if U.S. President Donald Trump's remaining tariffs on Chinese goods do not hit Apple products, the company will still feel some impact from the tax duties.
Industry experts further pointed out that one of the reasons why Apple dropped bigger market share than the rest of the Big Tech firms is due to the level of exposure of Apple in China compared to Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
It didn't help that Trump said last week Apple will not be hit with tariffs if it manufactures products in the U.S. and not in China. The president added that no tariff waivers will be provided for Apple parts that were manufactured in the Chinese market.
Some analysts stressed that it appears Big Tech stocks have been losing ever since Trump was elected as president in 2016. CNN reported that tech stocks saw their longest losing run ever since the historical decline between late October and early November that lasted for nine days.
While Big Tech firms were impacted largely by the re-escalation of the China-U.S. trade war, other smaller tech companies also shed some figures. These include top chipmakers Broadcom, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.
Industry experts said the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) announcement of antitrust probes into tech firms may have also affected the ongoing downtrend in tech stocks.
The DOJ said in July that it will kick off investigations into the business practices of Big Tech firms. For Facebook and Google, privacy concerns from users and regulators will be questioned. Retail services will be examined both for Apple and Amazon.
Shortly after the DOJ announced the investigations, tech stocks dropped over 1 percent. A month earlier, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company does not have "a dominant position in any market."
It is unclear how extensive the probes will be but since Trump has been a huge critic of Amazon and the White House particularly dislikes Facebook's Calibra project, industry experts said the world should expect some big news after the investigations wrap up.
