April 2022 Månadsuppdatering

April 2022 Monthly Update

The good news is that technology continues to deliver strong results in the first quarter and that the market is becoming more forgiving of weakness. The main focus of the market is still on macro even though the reporting season is now in full swing.

The Elon Musk and Twitter saga continues, now according to the NY Post, Thomas Bravo may join him in the Twitter bid. We don't own Netflix shares, but the headlines that Netflix is losing users have shaken the entire tech sector.

Our highly optimistic view of the Semicapital equipment names still stands out. According to KLA, the industry will grow by 20 % this year. But given the heavy investments in volumes, with nodes 3 and 2nm coming we see strong growth until at least 2025. Will a slower economy hit semiconductor volumes though? Yes but not investments as companies will invest long term and will try to stay away from the “Intel trap”.

Stocks in social media are bouncing on the results, but the underlying trends are not good and we have further changes underway such as fingerprinting for example. We further believe that consumers have backed off somewhat in spending given higher energy prices and the effects of higher interest rates in the second quarter. However, we have not seen any decline in corporate IT spending. The company stated that it has seen no signs of a slowdown in demand, even in Europe. We continue to see a tough environment in 2022 and early 2023.

Gaming across all platforms has been weak in 1Q due to the fact that some major games such as Activision's Call of Duty have had a disappointing annual release. In March 2022, consumer spending on video game hardware, content, and accessories decreased by 15 % in the United States. Elden Ring has been a clear winner during the quarter, which clearly demonstrates the demand for strong releases.

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