THE UNIVERSE CONTRACTS

New Media Map: The Universe Sees 8% Shrinkage

Happy Monday War & Peaceniks. Let’s get Mappy!

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Above you’ll find my latest Media Universe Map - the first since September 4. Much has changed over the last nine weeks. Since Labor day, I’ve dropped two new Maps of the ecosystem: One laying out Media’s Global Economic Ecosystem, and another plotting today’s World of FAST. But if you click on the map above, and zoom in, you’ll see that a good deal has changed for many of the companies and sectors on this, the OG Media Map, for good, bad and meh.

The average Market Valuation for the companies on this map has decreased -8% since the last map on September 4. That may seem like bad news, but it’s actually better than both the Dow Jones, which has fallen -9% in the last nine weeks, and the NASDAQ, which has sunk -11% in that time.

There are some big winners and many big losers from the last four fortnights, and if you look closely, as I tend to obsessively do, some major trends have emerged in a few sectors over the last two months that are definitely worth tracking as the fall progresses. Here they are…

ESHAP MAP TRENDS TO WATCH:

1. Big Tech Death Stars. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Amazon have all posted 3Q their earnings (Apple reports theirs on Thursday). The average market performance for this group is better than the map and the market, at -5% since September 4. If you read the actual earnings reports rather than the spin, there is a major trend emerging from this group: Digital Advertising is back. YouTube’s ad revenue is up 12.5% YoY. Meta’s revenue (which is 98% ads) increased 23% YoY. Amazon’s ad sales hit $12 billion, up 26% from a year ago. And yet Meta is only up 4% since the beginning of September, Amazon is down -4%, because Wall Street has decided that 12% growth at AWS is not enough, Alphabet is down -8% for the same exact reason - both examples of analysts’ current obsession with AI, that threatens to create a bubble. Microsoft is up just 1% despite finally closing their Activision deal and Apple is down 7%, likely based on expected slow sales for he new iPhone to come out in their earnings. Even NVIDIA (new entrant in the Death Star club) is down 11% since the last map - but they had such a steep climb in the last year, it was hard to see how that would sustain. If there is another big trend among the Death Stars over the last nine weeks, it’s that Wall Street has seemingly priced in “normal success” for them, and is waiting major news to propel them higher.

   The opposite is most definitely true for the next segment on the list, however…

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