Tech tumble

Tech stocks are facing a comeuppance after years of adoration from Wall Street.

Over the past three months, shares of the industry’s biggest names have tumbled, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars in collective market value. The tech-driven Nasdaq is down more than 11 percent from a record high of 8,000 since late August.

The so-called FAANG stocks – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google – have been particularly hard hit. They’ve collectively attracted billions to their products, carving out lucrative markets they each dominate.

But they’re facing new challenges and growing criticism. President Donald

Trump has started a trade war with China that may raise costs for manufacturers. Governments are starting to consider tougher privacy regulation that could curb tech’s influence. And some tech employees are restive about their companies’ contributions to military and immigration-related projects.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently called new privacy regulations “inevitable” in an interview with Axios – his latest effort to draw a distinction between Apple and data-hungry companies like Google and Facebook.

“I’m a big believer in the free market,” he said. “But we have to admit when the free market is not working. And it hasn’t worked here.”