What happened
Shares of Appian (APPN +1.75%) fell by 15.5% last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, on no company-specific news. The sell-off may have come as investors pulled back some of their optimism about the company from the previous month when they drove Appian's share price up more than 50%.
So what
Investors have, generally speaking, sold off some high-growth technology stocks earlier this year, after pouring into the sector in 2020. Appian's low-code app building platform became a tech stock darling last year, with its share price skyrocketing 324%.
Image source: Getty Images.
But some investors have cooled to tech stocks recently, thinking that the so-called pandemic plays have run their course, and have looked to other sectors to invest in. As the U.S. economy has begun to open back up investors have focused their attention on investments they believe will benefit from an economic rebound.
Investors have been processing a steady stream of COVID-19 news for more than a year now and that's led some of them to make drastic moves into, and out of, certain investments.
Now what
Appian just reported its second-quarter results on Aug. 5 and they were a bit mixed. The company's quarterly revenue of $83 million beat analysts' consensus estimate of $79.1 million, but Appian's adjusted loss per share of $0.24 was slightly worse than Wall Street's consensus estimate of a $0.23 loss per share.
Investors may want to take the company's recent share price swings with a grain of salt. The market is still trying to understand how the delta variant of COVD-19 will affect businesses and whether or not additional vaccines or mask mandates will be rolled out.
This uncertainty is bound to cause some volatility for Appian's stock, as well as for other tech companies, until investors know if rising coronavirus cases will hurt an economic rebound.
