Is the US tech bubble bursting, or is this just a blip?

America’s tech-heavy Nasdaq index slid by 5% yesterday – with Apple shares down by 8%. John Stepek asks if the bubble is finally bursting, and how it affects you and your portfolio.

Nasdaq © Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nasdaq: down 5%
(Image credit: © Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

US markets took a big knock yesterday. The technology index – the Nasdaq – fell by about 5%; Apple slid by 8%; Amazon, Microsoft and Google/Alphabet fell by more than 4%.

The S&P 500 was lower too – down 3.5%. And of course, with the US being the most important market in the world, our own rather less tech-heavy FTSE 100 fell too, though not by as much.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.