Millions of Briton’s savings as risk as US tech stocks slide

Millions of Britons’ savings are tied in part to the fortunes of US tech stocks including Netflix, Tesla and Amazon.

These Nasdaq favourites appear in the portfolios of many popular funds held in the pensions, Isas and other investments of UK households.

Netflix features alongside Tesla, Amazon and Moderna in the £13billion Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and the £4.4billion Baillie Gifford American trust.

Netflix was dubbed one of the ‘lockdown winners’ when the pandemic struck as subscriber growth rocketed.

It was among a number of US tech stocks that saw an astonishing rally in 2020 and 2021. Other stocks often held alongside Netflix include Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Google owner Alphabet as well as Facebook’s parent company Meta.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said that the huge swing in Netflix shares was a lot closer to home for many Britons than it might first appear.

Hunter said: ‘A lot of UK investors either directly or indirectly are invested in Netflix – with many choosing to ride the waves of the Nasdaq in the past couple of years.

‘This is, I suspect, going to one of the most widely held of the big tech stocks among individual UK investors, so a huge drop in the share price is something worth sitting up and taking notice of.

‘A lot of Britons are also Netflix customers.’