It’s worth remembering that some of the traditional tech firms are still stock market darlings
The global backlash against plastic packaging is obviously good news for glass, too, which can be easily recycled and is made from natural ingredients—sand, soda ash and limestone are the main ingredients used to create a brand new glass bottle. Most glass manufacturing also includes a substantial amount of cullet, which is broken glass in the form of scrap from the manufacturing process or from recycling systems.
Verallia is the world’s third-biggest maker of glass containers for food and beverages, with 16 billion bottles and jars produced in 2018, which earned it ¤2.4 billion in revenue. It listed on the Paris stock exchange in October, in what was the biggest French IPO for two years.
DNEG
DNEG is another company you’ve probably never heard of, but if you watched the hit TV show Chernobyl, you will have seen its incredible work. DNEG is an Oscar-winning London-based visual effects company that is still in the planning stages of its IPO, so this is one for the future.
With studios in Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Goa in India (as well as London, Vancouver, Los Angeles and Montreal), DNEG has a strong footprint right here in Asia. The company has won five Academy Awards for visual effects, most recently for First Man, the Neil Armstrong biopic— and the list of movies it has worked on include many of the biggest blockbusters to hit cinemas in recent years, such as Avengers: Endgame, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, Interstellar and Inception.
DNEG has also worked on iconic TV shows such as Black Mirror and Altered Carbon and is capitalising on growing TV budgets thanks to the deep pockets of streaming services such as Netflix and premium cable channels such as HBO.
The latest generation of tech companies might not inspire much confidence among investors, but few people doubt the demand for high-quality entertainment. After all, we need something to keep our minds off the news.
FAANGS (INDUSTRY ACRONYM FOR FACEBOOK, APPLE, AMAZON, NETFLIX AND GOOGLE)
Companies like Lyft and Peloton and other lossmaking Silicon Valley firms might be in the bad books right now, but it’s worth remembering that some of the traditional tech firms are still stock market darlings. Shares in Apple and Google are close to their all-time highs, Facebook is up more than 40 per cent in 2019, Amazon is up more than 15 per cent, and even Netflix is still up more than 5 per cent after a bruising few months.
So, while there are plenty of interesting new stocks outside the technology world, investors should still have faith in that sector. It’s just a question of being more selective.