What happened
Tech stocks are tumbling on Tuesday -- and it's no great mystery why. As of 10:40 a.m. ET, shares of cloud computing companies MongoDB (MDB 2.13%) and Fastly (FSLY 4.36%) are down 2.6% and 5.5%, respectively. Cybersecurity specialist CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD +1.72%) is sinking as well -- down 4.9%.
I blame JPMorgan Chase for all of the above.
NASDAQ: CRWD
Key Data Points
So what
In comments on the U.S. economy yesterday, JPM CEO Jamie Dimon predicted that a recession could arrive within the next "six to nine months." (Other economists believe we're already in a recession -- and have been since the economy booked its second straight quarter of negative growth in June.)
However you choose to define the word "recession," one thing's for certain: We're in an "awful stock market" (says Bahnsen Group Chief Investment Officer David Bahnsen), with the S&P 500 down 25% since its late-December peak. But that's not even the bad news. According to Dimon, depending on how much pain the Fed eventually decides to inflict in the form of higher interest rates, as it works to rein in inflation, the S&P could fall another 20%.
In that regard, we're currently at a 3.25% targeted federal funds rate -- and the Fed is expected to hike that as high as 4% next month. As interest rates continue to rise, the economy's growth is expected to slow, hurting especially unprofitable growth stocks like MongoDB, Fastly, and CrowdStrike.
Now what
Did I forget to mention that? Yes, it's true. At present, MongoDB, Fastly, and CrowdStrike are all losing money -- roughly $730 million a year, combined. And yet, these three stocks are not created equal.
Of the three, Fastly looks to be in the weakest position heading into a recession, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. In addition to never reporting a profit, it's never generated positive free cash flow and therefore is in no position to fund its own growth as debt gets more expensive, and selling stock becomes more difficult in this "awful" market we're in.
MongoDB, in contrast -- although deeply unprofitable -- appeared to be approaching free cash flow breakeven (at least it did last year, before the economy turned south). With more cash than debt on its books, I think there's a good chance MongoDB could still come out of this recession alive, and resume growing once the economy is back to health.
The stock on this list that I'm most optimistic about, though, is CrowdStrike. While technically unprofitable, in contrast to many techs, CrowdStrike does generate positive free cash flow already -- $569 million over the past 12 months. Granted, at a valuation of 66 times trailing free cash flow, CrowdStrike stock is obviously not cheap just yet.
But if Jamie Dimon is right, and the stock market is about to go on another 20%-off sale, CrowdStrike stock could get a lot cheaper. And if that happens, CrowdStrike is going to be close to the top of my shopping list.
