2021 was supposed to be better than 2020, but for many of us, it felt more like we'd been repeatedly ravaged by a couple of pit bulls named Stalin and Genghis. That's also true in the corporate sector, as many companies that rode the pandemic revenue wave in 2020 took a nasty and, sometimes, unexpected beating in 2021.
According to an end-of-year analysis done by Laura Mandaro and Aidan Ryan of The Information, an investment-news outlet, and based on data from S&P Global IQ, 2021 dropped stock prices for several companies that seemed unbeatable as the world moved towards a permanent hybrid work culture.
In tech, Mandaro and Ryan reported, there seemed to be a group mentality among investors that blessed certain sectors and dropped others like a lead bowling ball. The big five tech companies—Meta (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet (GOOG), affectionately known as FAANG—made the S&P's top 20 list last year, but they didn't make the top 10 this year. Most did rise somewhat, especially Apple at 66%.
Semiconductors were a much rosier sector: Nvidia jumped up 132% and enjoyed a market cap of $750 billion, making it the largest company in last year's top-20 stocks. But the behemoth in chip-making, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), rose only 17.41%, according to Barrons. Then again, behemoths tend to move slowly; and for companies of that size and dominance, those numbers are still net-positive.
Companies that took it on the chin were often the same firms that did exceptionally well in the work-from-home stampede that was 2020. Peloton (PTON) and Zoom (ZM) were two notable ones, dropping 77% and 49%, respectively. But even some giants got hit, including Alibaba (BABA), which sank by negative 53% even though it remains a major online shopping center.
Another surprise was that business VoIP provider RingCentral (RNG) dropped by 50%, even though its online collaboration products seem tailor-made for customers moving employees to hybrid work. While you might be able to trace RingCentral's troubles to some 2021 C-suite shakeups, the annual drop was still steep.
But not all pandemic darlings took a kick in the nethers last year. AMC Entertainment (AMC) and GameStop, whose streaming services were highly successful during the pandemic quarantining of 2020, continued that success in 2021. AMC was the hands-down winner with 1,121% annual growth. GameStop (GME) was fairly close behind at 694%.
When Mandaro and Ryan looked at overall performance over the last two years, the biggest winner was GameStop at 2,509% followed by electric car makers Tesla (TSLA), which came in at a honking 1,162%, and Nio (NIO), which hit 1,067%. The blue-ribbon losers were Tencent Music (TCEHY), dropping by 50% and Alibaba again, which took a 48% hit over both years.