UBS downgrades U.S. tech sector despite a recovery. It gave 3 reasons why


Key Points

  • UBS downgraded its outlook on U.S. IT stocks on Tuesday, citing lingering “software uncertainty” and increased capital expenditure.
  • The Swiss investment bank’s move comes after a sell-off in software stocks over the past week as investors turn cautious towards the sector.
  • UBS recommended investors diversify exposure to other sectors, including healthcare and utilities.


Nearly a thousand Google workers sign letter urging company to divest from ICE, CBP


The logo for Google LLC is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York, Nov. 17, 2021.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

More than 900 Google workers have signed an open letter condemning recent actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), urging the tech giant to disclose its dealings with the agencies and divest from them.

The letter, citing recent ICE killings of Keith Porter, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti, said that the employees are “appalled by the violence” and “horrified” by Google’s part in it.

“Google is powering this campaign of surveillance, violence, and repression,” the letter reads.

It goes on to cite that Google Cloud is aiding CBP surveillance and powering Palantir’s ImmigrationOS system, which is used by ICE. The letter states that Google’s generative artificial intelligence is used by CBP and that the Google Play Store has blocked ICE tracking apps.

The letter also quotes a social media post by Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean from early January, who wrote, “We all bear a collective responsibility to speak up and not be silent when we see things like the events of the last week.”

“We are vehemently opposed to Google’s partnerships with DHS, CBP, and ICE,” the employees wrote. “We consider it our leadership’s ethical and policy-bound responsibility to disclose all contracts and collaboration with CBP and ICE, and to divest from these partnerships.”

The letter calls on Google to acknowledge the danger that workers face from ICE, host an emergency internal Q&A on the company’s DHS and military contracts, implement safety measures to protect workers — such as flexible work-from-home policies and immigration support — and reveal its ties with the government agencies to help all involved determine where the company will draw a line.

“As workers of conscience, we demand that our leadership end our backslide into contracting for governments enacting violence against civilians,” the letter reads. “Google is now a prominent node in a shameful lineage of private companies profiting from violent state repression. We must use this moment to come together as a Googler community and demand an end to this disgraceful use of our labor.”

Google did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

The letter comes as employees place mounting pressure on tech CEOs to speak out against ICE. Just two weeks prior, employees representing Amazon, Spotify, Meta and more wrote a similar letter demanding ICE “out of our cities.”


Why Amazon’s CEO is ‘confident’ with $200 billion spending plan


Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaks during an unveiling event in New York, Feb. 26, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon‘s stock plunged 11% in extended trading on Thursday, dragged lower by market jitters around the company’s $200 billion capex plans, the highest spending forecast among the megacap companies.

The forecast is a sharp increase from Amazon’s capital expenditures last year, and it was more than $50 billion above analysts’ expectations. The company reported spending roughly $131 billion on purchases of property and equipment in 2025, up from about $83 billion in the year prior.

Tech companies have laid out aggressive spending plans on artificial intelligence infrastructure since OpenAI ushered in the modern era of this technology with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, but at the start of 2026, those lavish commitments have only kept growing.

Google parent Alphabet on Wednesday said it would spend up to $185 billion in 2026, while Meta last week said its capital expenditures could nearly double from last year to somewhere between $115 billion to $135 billion in 2026

On a conference call with investors, Wall Street analysts pressed Amazon executives for more clarity around the spending blitz and when it could begin to pay off. CEO Andy Jassy said in prepared remarks at the beginning of the call that he was “confident” that company’s cloud unit will see a “strong return on invested capital,” though he didn’t say when it could materialize.

“Help us, get to that — get to your level of confidence in having a strong long term return on that invested capital,” Mark Mahaney, Evercore ISI head of internet research, said to Jassy.

Jassy said the company needs the capital to keep pace with “very high demand” for Amazon’s AI compute, which requires more infrastructure such as data centers, chips and networking equipment.

“This isn’t some sort of quixotic, top-line grab,” Jassy said. “We have confidence that we, that these investments will yield strong returns on invested capital. We’ve done that with our core AWS business. I think that will very much be true here as well.”

Sales at Amazon Web Services grew 24% to $35.6 billion in the most recent period, beating analysts’ expectations and marking the cloud unit’s “fastest growth in 13 quarters,” Jassy said.

AWS could’ve grown faster if it had more capacity to meet demand, “so we are being incredibly scrappy around that,” he said.

The company’s cloud unit added almost 4 gigawatts of computing capacity in 2025, and AWS expects to double that power by the end of 2027, Jassy noted.

Barclays analyst Ross Sandler asked Jassy how he sees the AI market evolving from the current landscape, where it remains “a bit top-heavy with a lot of the spend clustering around a few of the AI-native labs.”

Jassy said the AI market has become more like a “barbell,” with the AI labs on one side and enterprises on the other end, looking to the technology as a “productivity and cost avoidance” tool. The middle is comprised of enterprises that are in various stages of building AI applications, he said.

“That middle part of the barbell very well may end up being the largest and most durable,” Jassy said.

WATCH: Amazon shares fall on earnings miss, $200 billion guidance for 2026 capex spending

Why Amazon’s CEO is ‘confident’ with 0 billion spending plan