Apple Inc. (AAPL), Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) & More: This Week in Tech

Although the NASDAQ index rose by just 1.16% this week, a number of meaningful events have occurred to some of the market’s major tech names in the time period.

In this article, we will take a closer look at some of the most relevant events that involved Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Moreover, we are going to see what the investors from our database think about these five stocks.

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Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) found itself under an unwanted spotlight this week after news broke that a likely ‘state-sponsored’ actor stole information that may have included the names, telephone numbers, date of birth, and hashed passwords associated with at least 500 million user accounts in late 2014. Many in the media are calling the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)  hack one of the worst in internet history given the scale and scope of the intrusion. So far, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), the company that agreed to buy Yahoo’s internet and some other assets for $4.8 billion, has not commented on what it will do with the new information, as the company had just been aware of the scope of the hack. Although some analysts don’t think that the hack constitutes a ‘material adverse event’ that could derail the merger, others think that Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) might use the incident to knock the final sale price down a bit. In any case, there is cloud of uncertainty around Yahoo, and that’s not good for shareholders. News of the incident caused Yahoo stock to fall 2% this week when shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) rose 2.9%. Verizon shares inched up 1.3% in the same time frame. Of the around 749 top funds that we track, 81 funds held shares of Yahoo and 52 were long Verizon at the end of June.

After surging last week, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares sank by 1.9% this week as some traders took profits. Hurting performance was a rumored GfK iPhone 7 channel check report that might have caused some traders to sell on Friday. Additionally hurting sentiment on the same day was a Reuters report that stated that Japanese regulators are considering filing suit/taking action against Apple for potential antitrust violations concerning Apple’s supply agreements with Japan’s top telecoms. Any meaningful negative action could hurt Apple’s profit margins in Japan, which has been one of the tech giant’s more profitable markets so far. Likely not causing very much movement but still relevant nevertheless is the news that Apple might be interested in McLaren in some form or another. Apple’s interest indicates that the company still has big plans for the car industry. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management trimmed its stake in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 1% to just over 11.3 million shares in the second quarter.

On the next page, we are going to take a closer look at the other two tech stocks that were in spotlight this week, Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) bulls are pretty happy after shares of the “What’s Now” social media company soared 18.3% for the week. All of the gains and then some came from Friday’s price action after it was revealed by CNBC that the company is ‘moving closer to a sale’, with several tech giants such as salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) rumored to be among potential bidders. The smart money was a little more bullish on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) in the second quarter, as the number of funds tracked by us with holdings in Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) rose by three quarter-over-quarter to 30 at the end of June.

Similar to Yahoo, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) found itself in some hot water after the social media company disclosed that it had inadvertently overestimated the average time users watched videos on its platforms for around two years. The average time watched was artificially higher by around 60%-80% due to engineers only factoring in views of videos of over three seconds when doing the average time calculations. Although the inflated metric did not affect billing, some advertisers aren’t happy, and traders sold Facebook off on Friday to the tune of 1.6%. Friday’s drop caused Facebook, which has historically shown admirable relative strength, to inch lower by 0.86% for the week.  According to our data, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was one of the most widely held stocks among the smart money set at the end of the second quarter, with 148 funds reporting long positions.

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