WAAAX is officially dead. What's next for tech on the ASX?
With Altium set to peel off the local sharemarket, investors are looking hard for the next generation of Australian tech companies.
When news of Altium’s $9.1 billion sale to Japan's Renesas Electronics broke last week, it put the final nail into the coffin of the 'WAAAX' stocks, the grouping of high flying ASX tech names that was Australia's humble answer to America's higher powered FAANG.
Altium's imminent departure from the local bourse, Afterpay's struggles under Block, and Appen's flameout mean that of the original WAAAX quintent just WiseTech and Xero Australia remain in the benchmark ASX 200 index.
But just as the FAANG evolved into the Magnificent Seven in the US, ASX observers believe a new generation of technology companies could emerge to drive the sector forward for an index that has always been thin on tech.
“There are some companies that are getting interesting as they start to get bigger and more liquid,” Tribeca Investment Partners portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu told Capital Brief.
