“In like a lion, out like a lamb” is commonly used to describe the transition from winter to spring that typically occurs in March. Financial returns for the Fab Five definitely rebounded this week (+$226 billion), even in the face of rising interest rates. Each Fab Five stock is up for the year, with the worst stock (Google) up a reasonable 6% in 2023.

Meta continues to be the top performer from a percentage basis, up 54% or $168 billion. That stock is now trading at about the same level it was in May of last year. This is driven by a realization that many of the investments that the company has made, particularly in Artificial Intelligence, are more than throwaway science experiments.

The Telco Top Five is still positive as a group (+$15 billion in 2023), but AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are a cumulative -$1 billion. On Friday, Big Red announced a sweeping reorganization that will result in a new CFO, Verizon Business Group lead, Verizon Consumer Group lead, and President of Global Networks. While three of these four will be filled by insiders, one can only wonder what Q1 results this might foreshadow. More in the actual Verizon announcement here and in this Wall Street Journal article (which includes an interesting stock price chart).

We will have more market commentary in next week’s Brief including coverage of Starry’s collapse. File is below.