Recently, you must have heard about it. Apple has lost its position as the world’s most valuable company due to a broad sell-off of technology stocks. 

This happened for the first time when Saudi Arabian oil and gas producer Aramco was able to achieve the spot from the iPhone maker giant for the first time in nearly two years. Now investors have started to sell shares in technology firms because they are seeing investment in it may be a risky asset. 

Apart from this, Bitcoin, other major cryptocurrencies, and digital assets are also continuing to fall sharply. So, it might be a second reason for their withdrawal from shares. Besides, Shares of Apple fell by more than 5% in New York on Wednesday to end the trading day. The valuation of Apple in the stock market was $2.37 trillion in comparison to oil and gas producer Aramco. That’s why it lost its position as the most valuable company in the world.

It will be the first time that Aramco has managed to be in the top spot since 2020. This year shares of energy producers have risen as the cost of crude oil and natural gas prices increased. Moreover, Apple’s shares have fallen by almost 20% since the start of the year due to a sell-off in technology stocks. 

In addition, The technology-heavy Nasdaq closed 3.2% lower in New York on Wednesday after the publication of official data that inflation remained near a more than 40-year high. This is a big blow for their shareholders. Also, the rise in prices has been the single biggest threat to the recovery of the global economy as it emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic. Around the world, Central banks have responded to the problem of rising interest rates. It has triggered a move out of riskier investment over concerns that the higher cost of borrowing will slow down the economic growth of everyone. 

On Thursday, Japan’s SoftBank Group reported a record loss of $26.2bn in its Vision Fund business as the value of its technology investment slid. This loss was in stark contrast to a year ago when the company posted a record annual profit. Several companies in which Softbank has stakes besides ride-hailing firms Didi and Grab have also fallen in value. The action of moving out of what are seen as risky assets also pushes the price of Bitcoin below $27,000. The world’s well-known and enormous crypto-currency has now lost about 60% of its value since November last year in high-hitting records. Additionally, Ether, which has been linked to the Ethereum blockchain network, also fell sharply again and in the last week, it has now lost more than 40% of the value of its shares.

Pandemic impact :

Everyone has awareness of how pandemics are affecting life. In January, Apple became the first company to hit the stock market with a valuation of $ 3tn. It might be surprising for everyone because the company managed to achieve the title of one of the big winners of the pandemic. Due to coronavirus, lockdowns were imposed and we started to spend on gadgets for working efficiently. This record proves that Apple’s value has become greater than the $2.76tn size of the UK’s economy, according to World Bank data.

During the time of lockdowns, the world’s biggest technology companies have seen the demand soar as people become more reliant on technology gadgets. In just over 16 months, Apple’s stock market valuation also jumped from $2tn to $3tn. In contrast, state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco has taken advantage of the rising prices of crude due to current geopolitical situations.

You may know Saudi Arabia has the largest producer of the Opec oil cartel and Saudi Aramco for the production of crude oil. This year they have doubled its net profit to $110bn in 2021 from $49bn in 2020. The reopening of economies from pandemic measures led to the steady increase in energy prices in 2021. Also, this year the war between Ukraine and Russia has plunged the prices of crude oil.