Investors have returned to tech stocks, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq topping all three major Wall Street indices since the start of the year, up over 6%. But fund manager Trent Masters of Alphinity Investment Management isn’t convinced — and told CNBC Pro Talks last week which two big tech stocks might be worth avoiding for now. Masters manages the Alphinity Global Equity Fund, which has outperformed the MSCI World Index over the past year. He currently has no big tech names other than a “residual” position at Apple. Meta Masters told CNBC Pro there are “real questions” about some companies’ business models – and Meta is the “most exposed” of them all. With meta stocks falling, investors are beginning to believe they have “some value.” “But for me, there’s this kind of ongoing concern that you have engagement that’s fundamentally being eaten by TikTok given this crossroads between TikTok, Facebook and Instagram,” Masters said. According to FactSet, 31% of analysts gave the stock a Hold rating. Meta is down 57% over the past year. Apple Masters said the latest iPhone release was “pretty tepid” as “there wasn’t really much in it”. Additionally, the company faces an environment where consumers who are less willing to spend are “quite squeezed. Expectations for Apple will need to be revised over the next year or two,” he said. Over the longer term — 10 years — Apple could achieve mid-single-digit growth of up to 10%. “It must be so through constant innovation and the creation of new products,” he said. So I think you know that the focus for Apple over the next year or two is going to be that pinch of consumers, which is going to make it pretty difficult for them to deliver the earnings results that the market is expecting,” he said. But by and large, analysts were still bullish on Apple, giving it a 26% gain, with 73% of them recommending the stock as a buy. Apple is down about 20% over the past year.
