This Week in Tech: Tesla, Apple, Amazon, and More

Amazon Prime Day a Success

Although Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)‘s Prime Day won’t whet consumer appetites as much as the day after Thanksgiving or the day after Christmas any time soon, July 12 was a success for the e-commerce giant. Amazon announced that worldwide orders rose 60% year-over-year on the day, while domestic orders jumped 50% year-over-year. More importantly, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) likely signed up millions of new Prime members, many of whom will stick around after the promotion. Given that Prime members spend substantially more than non-Prime members, Prime Day’s benefits to Amazon will last far beyond July 12, and the company’s revenue will likely increase faster. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global owned more than 3.4 million shares at the end of March.

The EU Brings More Charges Against Alphabet 

Although being a profitable, world-changing, civilization-advancing, wide-moat monopoly is a capitalist’s dream for the most part, being too dominant has its downsides, as Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is now finding out. According to the New York Times, the European Union’s competition agency announced a new raft of antitrust charges against Alphabet, including the charge that some of Alphabet’s Google advertising products limited consumer choice. The charges could lead to more fines and more restrictions on how Alphabet does business in the EU. A total of 142 funds from our database were long Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) at the end of the first quarter, unchanged from that of the previous quarter.

Pokemon Go Gives Microsoft Hope 

Traders are increasingly bullish on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)‘s HoloLens after the phenomenal debut of the augmented reality game Pokemon Go. In just a few days, Pokemon Go has become more popular than Tinder, Twitter, and several other widely used apps. The game’s success shows that consumers are ready for augmented reality (and that the product won’t be too early). Seeing as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is arguably in the lead in augmented reality with HoloLens, Microsoft’s profits could potentially receive a boost if the product becomes a hit. The number of funds tracked by us with holdings in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) rose by four quarter-over-quarter to 144 at the end of March.

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