Tech Roundup: The Internet stock outlook for 2022 leads a quiet last week of 2021
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Well, it should come as no surprise that the last week of 2021 was, all things considered, one of the quietest of the year. After all, even the biggest tech companies and Wall Street analysts need to dial things down from time to time, and the week between Christmas and New Year's Day is typically one of those times.

But, that doesn't mean there was nothing going on in tech this week. For example, the end of any year brings about speculations and pontifications about what could be expected from the year ahead. And for Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney said that when it comes to Internet companies, he sees Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Uber (NYSE:UBER) and Facebook's Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB)
as his top tech picks for 2022. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian echoed much of Mahaney's sentiment, by also calling Amazon (AMZN) and Meta (FB) as his top large cap Internet selections for the new year.
Speaking of Facebook (FB), another "Facebook Files" story from the Wall Street Journal said that Facebook (FB) deliberately tried to tamp down on information leaks by company whistleblowers and pit various politicians against each other, depending on their political affiliations.
Meta (FB) also found itself having to hire a new head of communications and public relations, as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has reportedly poached Andrea Schubert from the social media giant. However, Apple (AAPL) is said to have hired Schubert not for its PR team, but to head up the company's augmented reality products.
Maybe Meta (FB) could have held onto Schubert if I had followed Apple's (AAPL) lead, as it is giving stock bonuses worth up to $180,000 in an effort to keep certain employees from leaving the company.
Chinese tech companies found a few ways to get the attention of investors last week, with Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) reportedly considering selling its 30% stake in Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) to a media company that is owned by the Chinese government.
Ride-sharing giant DiDi Global (NYSE:DIDI) was active following a report that it will do a "listing by introduction" method of listing its shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange, by also saying Alibaba (BABA) Chief Executive Daniel Zhang has stepped down from DiDi's (DIDI) board of directors.
Memory chipmaker Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) said it is seeing some impact from rising Covid-19 cases in the city of Xian, China, where the company has a chip-testing and packaging facility. However, Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers said there is evidence that the situation will have a limited impact on Micron's business.
Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) also said it will cut some of its memory-chip production in Xian due to the rise in Covid cases in the city.
The rise in new Covid-19 cases continued to affect the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, which is still slated to kick off on Jan. 5 in Las Vegas. However, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) has joined the likes of Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)
in cancelling plans to attend the show in person.
AMD (AMD) also said it now expects its acquisition of Xilinx (NASDAQ:XLNX) to close in the first quarter of 2022 due to delays in securing the necessary approvals of the deal.
And, if you had nothing better to do on New Year's Eve, Paris Hilton and Roblox (NYSE:RBLX) would have welcomed you into their own version of the Metaverse to ring in 2022.