Seattle's tech stocks sink as market struggles, but some companies are faring better than others

With the global economy being interrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19, Seattle's booming tech industry is not immune to the effects -- but some companies are faring better than others in this turbulent time.

The market slide comes amid global shutdowns, cancellations and restricted travel. Stock indexes fell so sharply when opening bell rang on Wall Street Thursday morning that it triggered a 15-minute trading halt for the second time this week.

Perhaps the most impacted by the current outbreak are major travel companies like the Expedia Group, which includes a vast range of travel brands such as Vrbo, Travelocity, Orbitz and HomeAway. According to data from MarketWatch, the company started the week with shares at $83.97 Monday morning and saw prices plummet to the low sixties by Thursday morning after President Donald Trump announced a strict travel ban from European countries.

An analysis from Geekwire found that Expedia is predicting more than $470 million decline in first quarter revenue from this time last year as global travel slows amid the COVID-19 outbreak. This loss comes just a month after the company announced that it would be laying off 12% of its workforce, including 500 people at their Seattle headquarters.

Given the uncertainty of travel at this time, it is unclear whether this loss will lead to more lay offs within the company.

The outbreak's downturn in airline travel is also hurting Boeing, which saw its shares drop a massive 18% on Wednesday alone, the largest one-day drop in the company since 1974. The company experienced a net loss in orders for new commercial planes over the month of February due to orders of the grounded 737 Max being cancelled.

“The year ahead is shaping up to be as challenging for our business as any in the recent past,” wrote CEO David Calhoun and Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith in a note to employees. “On top of the work of safely returning the 737 MAX to service and the financial impact of the pause in MAX production, we're now facing a global economic disruption generated by the COVID-19 coronavirus.”

Other tech companies in Seattle are seeing similar declines in share prices over the course of this turbulent trading week.

According to MarketWatch's data, Amazon's shares sank from $1900 at the end of last week to $1,767 Monday morning. Much like Expedia, it also saw a steep decline between Wednesday and Thursday after the travel ban was enacted and the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Microsoft has been experiencing decline in shares long before this week. According to Yahoo Finance, Microsoft’s stock sank 19% between February and March due to fears of delayed hardware production from China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, tech analyst Dan Ives believed that these are only short-term given Microsoft's advancements in their cloud computing service, Azure.

“Despite near-term worries, we believe Azure's cloud momentum is still in its early days of playing out within the company’s massive installed base, the Office 365 transition for both consumer/enterprise is providing growth tailwinds over the next 12 to 18 months (at least), and newer integrated product initiatives around consumers and cloud services (LinkedIn) are front and center,” wrote Ives in a note to clients.

While the short-term effects of this market volatility are being felt in the stock exchange, the long-term effects on local companies and their employees are still to play out in the upcoming weeks and months ahead.

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