Big Tech shares soar as fears of a blue wave stoking antitrust probes subside
Shares of Big Tech were up sharply early Wednesday after national election results strongly hinted at a split government instead of a Democratic-led blue wave and subsequent antitrust push. Shares of Facebook Inc. soared 8%, while Alphabet Inc.'s Google catapulted 7%. Amazon.com Inc. was up 6%, and Apple Inc. jumped 3%. All four companies face government actions for their business practices. Investors had been bracing for an acceleration of those efforts in the event the Democrats won the White House, Senate, and House. "We now see a material reduction in the possibility of a meaningful overhaul to existing anti-trust law, which, in our view, was the primary risk vector to big tech in a blue wave," Evercore ISI analyst Benjamin Black said in a note Wednesday. "[Facebook] and [Google] are major winners on this front, followed by [Amazon]."
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